


Were You Ever Even There?

by BreeGold



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Boss to Lovers, Boss/Employee Relationship, F/F, Human AU, Human Doctor (Doctor Who), Slow Burn, Spy - Freeform, spy AU, thasmin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 08:02:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 36,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27967250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BreeGold/pseuds/BreeGold
Summary: Yasmin Khan is a new recruit to a spy agency, about to go on her first mission, but first she has to meet her new boss, Director J.
Relationships: Thasmin - Relationship, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 32
Kudos: 72





	1. Meeting J

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates Weekly

You can do this, you are meant to be here, you earned it, you got this. Yasmin was sat in an uncomfortable chair in a corridor in a glass building high above the city. She smoothed her suit jacket over her thighs and tried to regulate her breathing. It was fine, she had only worked for this since leaving high school. Leaving was a lie, told to everyone on her behalf, she was recruited. Her dropping out made her parents apoplectic with anxiety and fear, and her sister very happy. Although she stopped smiling when she told her parents of her intention to follow in Yasmin's footsteps. Suffice it to say she was still in school, and Yasmin was here, in the HQ, waiting for her first assignment. Her breathing settled and she focused on the art on the walls. They were bound to have been specifically chosen to challenge the agents while they waited, undermine their concentration, throw them off. The one affixed to the wall opposite Yasmin was a meadow with a bright red barn obscured by a maple tree. Yasmin took it in, the composition was strange, unsettling. She felt eyes on her and flickered her own to meet the gaze of the receptionist whom Yasmin was currently in the care of. She'd waited for half an hour, well 29 minutes 22 seconds exactly, Yasmin had learnt that time keeping was essential in their business and she managed to learn how to constantly track the passing seconds almost as a subroutine of her brain in a few sessions. The receptionist smiled thinly and looked back down at her screen. Yasmin carried on watching her, aware of her furtive little flicks as she tried to not obviously use her peripherals. She liked the sensation of making people uncomfortable. It was probably because of her training, her physical aptitude gave her a confidence. Useful on missions and in bars, less so in most other places. She suppressed a smile thinking about how she thought the words, on missions, she would soon be undertaking them. Years of training, physical, emotional, mental, some times gruelling, had led up to right now. 

'Agent Khan' a voice from the intercom behind the receptionist's desk called curtly.  
'You can go in now' the receptionist said in a clipped tone, pressing a button that unlocked the office door opposite to them. Yasmin rose, smoothed her suit again, and swallowed, trying not to think about the crushing weight of the next few moments. Her legs carried her to the door without her consciously moving them. She opened the door and strode in. The room was gorgeous. The view was gorgeous. Its occupant was gorgeous. Yasmin took everything in a few moments, her eyes scanning the room and settling on the empty chair in front of the desk. The marble of the floor was a warm white with livid red veins streaked throughout. The walls were covered in latticed dark wood carved into designs that you could study for weeks and still find new details. The desk could have been in an art museum. The back wall was entirely glass and it showed the sun setting on the river, its deep orange light sinking into itself and illuminating her new boss from behind. It shone through her hair, shoulder length and strikingly blonde, rendered even more so by the setting sun. Her suit was probably more expensive than the entire room. Its lines were stark and her figure accentuated by every stitch and fold. Yasmin dry swallowed again, casting her eyes down as her boss walked from around the back of her desk towards her, letting the sunlight flood the room. 

'Agent Khan, pleasure' her boss said, extending her hand. Yasmin nodded and brought her own up to shake it. Their fingers touched but her boss twisted, pulling Yasmin forward. She caught her breath and planted her feet so as not to go off balance. Her heels were short and slid on the marble as she moved her weight and raised her right left arm to block the attack that was coming. Her boss's arm was deflected smartly and Yasmin hopped back, getting some distance. She noticed her boss was laughing, and already straightening up, out of a fighting pose. She stayed ready with her fists raised for a moment before laughing too.  
'On alert, good, you'd be amazed how many freshies freeze up, must think they're safe, rule one Khan, you're never safe, not here, not out there, not in your little bedsit in Charing Cross' Yasmin knew she'd be tested but this was something else. She had only rented that 'little bedsit', actually quite a nice apartment, last week and hadn't gotten round to listing her new address with HQ yet.  
'Yes mam' she said lowering her arms and nodding.  
'You can call me J for now agent' her boss said.  
'Yes Sir J' Yasmin offered, knowing that a further correction would be incoming. But J creased her brow in a way that would, on anyone who wasn't capable of killing you with a pencil shaving, be called goofy.  
'Sir J, beats Mam J, my last recruit called me that on missions and I couldn't take myself seriously, almost blew the entire operation, but J will be fine' she said, extending her hand again. Yasmin eyed it and stayed still, clasping her hands behind her back. J nodded,  
'Smart girl, can't fool you twice, or even once come to think of it, you'll do, now lets sit and go through the boring stuff and I'll get you up to speed with the mission' she said the last word with the weight that she knew Yasmin would feel it held. 

'Parameters are simple, don't get caught, plant the bug, gather hard copies of intel and retain any fingerprints on them' J explained after Yasmin had filled out her details, including her new address. Her first mission was an infiltration of a suspected shell company for someone or other. The brief didn't go beyond the vaguest intel, made sense, she thought, she wasn't in deep enough yet. The training academy had only a 2% completion rate and only 0.3% of them made it through their first year as agents without demotion or death. The odds didn't bother Yasmin, she knew that she had no other choice, a normal life would drive her to narcotics and with her thrill seeking nature she'd be in prison before she was 25. Better the life of a spy than that, she figured, even if it killed her. J slid small plastic box containing the bug over the desk towards Yasmin.  
'Install this in the bathroom on the seventh floor, behind the cistern of the second stall from the door, that's where our cleaner will pick it up from' J said.  
Yasmin took the box and stowed it inside her blazer. Next across the table was a gun. Her gun.  
'Personal firearm of agent Khan, keyed to your thumbprint, ammo requisitions are to be sent through Suki outside, her number will preloaded on this' J said sliding over another plastic box. Yasmin took her gun, felt its weight, and stowed that too in the empty holster she had been told to wear. That weight on her hip would soon become familiar, she thought. She picked up the box and J gestured for her to open them wordlessly. Inside were two contact lenses.  
'Google glass but good, basically' J went on to explain their use and how invaluable they were as Yasmin applied them, trying not to show her visible discomfort with things going in her eyes. Once in, Yasmin's vision had a overlay of data, like a HUD in a video game, she thought.  
'They're haptic so you look at the functions for 2 seconds and they open, you'll get used to it I'm sure' J clapped her hands and next to her a bio page unfolded.  
DIRECTOR J.  
RECOR AFFILIATE.  
AGE: 38.  
J clapped again and the bio vanished.  
'Certainly useful' Yasmin breathed. J smiled, Yasmin was getting quite used to that smile.  
'You'll be linked to our boffins here at HQ who will feed you info on whoever you see, if relevant, but don't let the handholding fool you, its all down to you out there' J stood up and held her hand out over the desk. Yasmin intuitively focused her vision on J's wrist, a bio box appeared and her pulse extrapolated from it, Yasmin deduced quickly that it was at a normal level and took her hand and shook it firmly.  
'You just took my pulse' J said, breaking off the shake, watching Yasmin intently who felt her cheeks wanting to redden.  
'Very interesting' J said almost to herself, and sat down before pressing a button and talking through to the receptionist, Suki. Yasmin rose and adjusted her suit before looking her boss in the eye and smiling,  
'Thank you sir' she said, before turning and walking out leaving J behind her desk where she tapped her fingers on the wood absently, watching the door close.  
'Very interesting...' she said again smiling, definitely to herself.


	2. First Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yasmin goes on her first mission under J.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Trigger Warnings: Stabbing)

Yasmin collected her bullets from a snippy guy ensconced in the armoury cage, he fed her them through a hole in the wall, much like a bank teller, but dealing in lethality. She felt strange as she loaded them into the chamber of her personal firearm. The clip was only half full but it kept the gun light she thought. Her mission didn't specify a time, but Yasmin decided on night. Cut down on the exposure, but raised the security. She knew which would rather deal with. She left RECOR HQ and swept through the busy streets, fading into the surging crowd. 

She reached her home sodden from a rainfall and pushed her door closed behind her with relief. She peeled off her suit jacket and undid her shirt buttons right inside the door, letting them fall onto the floor where she stood. She kicked her heels off and padded into the kitchen. Opening the generous fridge and scooping up a handful of premade salad, she gulped it down as she undid her trousers and gun belt and pushed them down to the floor where they bunched at her feet. Stepping out of them she grabbed another handful of salad and slammed the fridge shut. She kept the windows permanently obscured by blinds but they were angled slightly letting light filter through, not that the fading day had much left to offer. She stepped over the back of her couch and flopped cross-legged onto it. Devouring the fistful of salad, she flipped her tablet over, both cameras scratched out, microphone removed of course, and she scoured the news. RECOR's app, released under a pseudonym of course, filtered mainstream media, new media, bloggers, out of favour reporters and activists all into one timeline and Yasmin kept up to speed as much out of habit as professional necessity. 

She happened across a blogger bemoaning a conspiracy to poison his own street's water supply with a hallucinogen, distributed, he seethed, by a new mailman who had mysteriously replaced their local one last month. Could have been written by her father, she thought. Yasmin smiled remembering her dad. She wondered about her family, whether or not they understood what had happened to her. She hoped that RECOR had explained, but she knew there was a good chance the Khans had simply put her down as another runaway. Yasmin kept her own tabs on her folks; her sister updated Instagram like had shares in it. She would need a new name, she thought suddenly. Pressing back into her couch, Yasmin felt her eyes grow heavy, she had been up at 4 AM and trained most of the day before her interview. She blinked and felt the slight irritation of the lenses, she still had them in. 

Raising her hand to withdraw them, she noticed that her door handle was up. On her feet and in the kitchen in seconds, she scooped her gun up and trained it on the door. She caught her reflection in the kettle, underwear and a gun, hair ruined by the rain, she'd fit right in on a pulpy spy thriller cover. Silent footsteps carried her over to her door. She dropped to her haunches and looked through the keyhole. No sign of movement outside. Angling her body away from the door, she leaned over and tried the spyhole. The hall was clear. She breathed out, thinking that maybe she left the handle up when she came in. Jumpy. J wouldn't be impressed, she chided herself. Or maybe she would, Yasmin thought, finding her reflection in the kettle once again.  
'Where did that come from?' she asked herself, dropping her gun on the table next to her tablet and throwing herself back onto the settee where she slept until night pressed against the windows. 

Yasmin was roused by a pulsing light in her vision. She snapped awake and cast around her apartment. The contact lenses were displaying a small icon of a phone. She focused on it and it opened up, ANSWER - DECLINE. But decline was greyed out. She looked at answer and her phone, still in her trouser pocket in the kitchen, buzzed and J's voice rang out of it. Yasmin rolled off the couch and snatched her pants up, fumbling for her phone,  
'Agent Khan reporting in sir' she called, feeling herself stand to attention, which was slightly ridiculous with nothing on in her own kitchen in the dark.  
'At ease' J said softly, 'Just checking in, we haven't heard anything about the infiltration yet' Yasmin frowned,  
'I am undertaking the mission tonight, night missions fare better across multiple studies...' she started but J cut her off,  
'I know that, just thought you were more the run and gun type' Yasmin frowned deeper, this was strange, was she still asleep.  
'No sir' she offered, sagging her shoulders slightly and looking around her dark home, unreality hitting her, she was talking to her boss, in the middle of the night, in her pants. 'Is there anything I can do for you sir?' she offered, feeling slightly awkward after this revelation.  
'I was just lonely' J said, her honesty staggering Yasmin who, was at a loss for what to say. She had never expected to get a call from the director, let alone one such as this. 'Anyway, I'm still at the office and they block Netflix so maybe get on with your mission so I don't die of boredom doing paperwork?' J said, and Yasmin stood back up straight. This was, as the academy called it, a kick up the arse.  
'Yes sir, I'm just out the door' she said, dropping her phone on the kitchen counter and rushing to her bedroom. J's avatar in Yasmin's vision went dark as she hung up. 

Pulling on black fatigues and a microfibre balaclava, Yasmin steeled herself. Her first mission. She wasn't prepped, she had slept instead of prepped. But she had trained for years, tuning her body and mind, she would be okay, she told herself. Striding into the living room to retrieve her gun belt and gun, she tried to find the call section on her contact lenses but it all faded seamlessly into natural looking vision when not in use. As if reading her mind however, J's avatar was calling her again. Yasmin picked up her phone and stowed it in her fatigues and cinched her gun belt round her waist. She answered in her contact lenses and switched a tiny Bluetooth earbud on which J's voice came through.  
'Passing you over to OB' she said before a click and a fizz.  
'I've brought up all available CCTV of the building, feeding through to you now' an older cockney voice said in place of J's. Yasmin's vision exploded with tiny squares of live feeds all focusing on the perimeter of the office building which was to be her target. She scanned them all and brought up the layout as an attachment. Retrieving the bug from her jacket, still on the floor by the door, Yasmin pulled on her gloves and left her apartment. 

She made her way through the city like a shadow, she'd been doing this long before training, dodging groups of undesirables and bullies back home in Sheffield. On foot she managed to beat most idle taxis and arrived at the office within the hour. J texted an hourglass emoji half an hour in. Yasmin did not reply, unsure of how to. The director's behaviour was, well, unprofessional, she thought. But if her bio was to be believed, she was the youngest director RECOR had ever had, so she must get results.  
'This place is crawling with night watchmen' OB said unexpectedly, making Yasmin on edge. The alley she cut through opened out onto the main plaza in front of the office and she stuck to the shadows, shrinking behind a industrial bin when a car pulled off the forecourt and illuminated the alleyway.  
'They won't see me' she replied confidently.  
'I hope you're right' he said back, tapping out some more intel which opened as windows in Yasmin's contact lenses. She drank them in, studying the floorplans and entrances. 

Turned out to be the bathroom on the seventh floor was the en suite of a penthouse, which was seemingly occupied year round. Yasmin poured through the visitor logs from the office building's lobby terminal which OB had managed to hack. She noticed the security forces within the building patrolling on every floor even from the street view. Their bulky forms swaggering past the bright windows against the dark of night. Yasmin glanced down at her gun and the 13 bullets within. She needed to get through unseen.  
'Right, I'm heading in' she told OB and J's avatar pinged up a thumbs up emoji. When she was training at the academy they never taught you that emojis would be a part of standard communication. 

She broke into the office building at the back. Her pick locking skills had been frowned upon by some of her teachers as being antiquated but the electrical cupboard was locked with an old fashioned padlock instead of the electronic digital code pads that the rest of the exterior doors had. Bumping the tumblers up delicately she undid the lock and slipped inside. The ceiling was made of segmented foamboard, ugly white squares sat on a latticed frame. She climbed the shelves full of paint cans and tools and gently pushed the ceiling tile up and slid it to the side. Pulling herself up and replacing the tile, Yasmin crawled awkwardly with her knees touching the framework, not the foam tiles. Her knees began to hurt but she pushed the discomfort aside.  
'Should be clear to come down in about 15 meters, 15 forward, 4 to your left, let you out in an empty room' OB said in her earpiece. Yasmin nodded and made her way over there, listening out for the guards below. She couldn't hear them shuffling or talking as they patrolled. Maybe they were upstairs only, she thought. 

Moving the tile OB led her to aside, she peered down into the room, it was indeed empty, but there were no footholds to be had. She swung her feet down and let herself drop. Down to her haunches and back up silently, Yasmin scanned the room and made for the door. Pressing her ear against it she listened out intently. Not a sound outside save the hum of aircon. She opened the door and stalked the corridors, following the schematics in her eyes until she found the stairs. She swept up them, ears tensed for any sounds. She had seen guards on this level, but there were none present. Every corridor she crested was bare. This unnerved her more than hiding away from patrolling guards.  
'Where are the security?' she breathed, hoping her microphone had picked it up.  
'No idea, haven't seen one for five minutes' OB replied. Yasmin eyed J's avatar which pulsed steadily in the corner of her eye, silent. 

Yasmin unlatched her gun and gripped it tightly as she climbed the 6th flight of stairs. As she stepped up onto the penthouse level, she noticed movement to her right. She flattened herself to the wall and stayed still, listening out. Someone was at the far end of the corridor, Yasmin checked the schematics, the way she had to go to reach the penthouse. That's fine, she thought, she'd just got extremely lucky up to now, to not encounter anyone. But the disappearance of the guards was not luck, she feared. She breathed in and swung round the wall into the corridor just in time to see the penthouse door closing. J's avatar flared,  
'Get in there!' she called in her ear and Yasmin took off running. The door was nearly shut when Yasmin's foot drove it off its hinges and Yasmin crashed into the lavish suite. There was blood staining a stark white wall and a figure hunched over someone lying down. Both turned to face Yasmin as she took in the scene, raising her gun defensively. One was a man, dark hair, bold stubble, in similar black fatigues to Yasmin and he was holding a serrated knife, stood over a prone woman, who was clutching her neck. That was Grace Sinclair. The CEO. The target of the bug. J's warning, don't get caught, replayed uselessly in her mind. 

'Abort' J called, her composure gone. Yasmin raised her gun and trained it on the man, who grinned, his teeth were shining white in the dark.  
'Now I can say I was provoked' he demurred, feinting to the left, Yasmin turned and squeeze the trigger, but he was already lunging at her from the right. She tried to aim at him but he was too close so she struck out with her pistol butt. It hit him in the shoulder but he had the momentum and he barrelled into Yasmin who was lifted off her feet.  
'Watch the knife' OB said in her ear.  
'Agent Khan abort' J yelled. Yasmin sucked in air, she was winded, and brought her knees up to kick the man away, but he was already slashing wildly at her with the bloody knife. Yasmin felt the air part before the blade as it narrowly missed her throat. She flattened to the floor and pushed herself away. Her attacker stabbed at her leg as she pulled it out of his reach and they both scrambled to their feet. Yasmin was first up, training her gun back on the man who stopped dead.  
'No way at this range, now drop the knife' Yasmin ordered. The man smirked insolently and dropped it.  
'Who sent you?' Yasmin asked, knowing it was futile but interrogation of enemy agents was as near to policy as spy agencies had. The man just carried on that demented grin and started to walk towards her, slowly. Yasmin backed up, keeping her gun trained on him but maintaining her distance advantage.  
'You're under arrest' Yasmin said, she had zip ties in her gear belt, she could bring him back to RECOR. J had other ideas.  
'Negative, execute him' she said, her voice was hard for the first time. Yasmin blinked.  
'What, just got to the bit where they tell you to kill me?' the man said, his voice was eerily calm. Yasmin's nerves were shot from the fight, but his prescience was the kicker.  
'Execute that man' J ordered again in Yasmin's ear. 

Yasmin felt the next few moments slow down to a crawl as she felt the gun in her hands, watched the man make a sudden bolt for the door and heard J order his execution for a third time. She tracked him with the gun nozzle for a 3 paces as he ran then she squeezed the trigger. His arm was impacted, she saw the material of his clothes ripple as he was thrown back against the wall.  
'Big mistake' he growled, changing direction and heading for her. Yasmin backed up and levelled her next shot, but she felt her foot slip on something, she was falling, over the body of Grace Sinclair.  
'Yasmin!' J called, uselessly miles away in her office. OB was silent on the line as they both watched Yasmin's contact lenses record the man approaching her, his knife back in his hand. 

'I know you're listening mam' he said, squatting down in front of Yasmin's face, looking into her eyes, straight out of J's monitor on her desk. 'I know you are, I can feel you, pulling this little puppet's strings, she was good, better than the Sinclair mercenaries downstairs, better than your last agent, but not as good as me, clearly' he said, staring through Yasmin's eyes, not acknowledging her as she swam in and out of consciousness, clutching the back of her head where it had hit the floor. 'You shouldn't try to find me again' he warned, before driving his blade into Yasmin's chest.


	3. Visits

When Yasmin woke up, she was in a hospital bed, the steady beeping of machinary behind her head ticking off the seconds. The room swam into focus and the single seat was occupied by J. She was sat up, watching Yasmin intently, her chin resting on her hands.   
'Morning' she said softly. Yasmin blinked and drew in breath, but winced, looking down at the bandages on her sternum.   
'I'm sorry...' she started, her voice weak, but J waved her hand.  
'It was bad intel, we should have known another operative was there, it was on us' she said, genuinely remorseful. J continued to surprise Yasmin, she had an idea of the director being cold, distant, ready to sacrifice anyone and answer to no-one. J sent emojis, joked with her, and now waited at her bedside. Yasmin nodded and licked her dry lips.   
'Here' J said coming over to her bedside with a foamcup of ice water and a straw. Yasmin took a slow, painful sip and laid her head back down.   
'How long will I be out?' she asked, trying to keep her voice level. J shrugged and sat back down,   
'That doesn't matter for now, you'll be back out there when you're ready, but I do need to know if he said anything else to you, after...' she trailed off, looking down at Yasmin's wound. 

'I don't remember much, I was woozy from falling over the body, Grace Sinclair, what happened with the mission?' she asked pushing herself up in bed suddenly.  
'We don't know why she was killed, but the office was cleaned of all hard evidence we would have needed, your bug was gone too, he left your gun, its back at HQ' she said smiling slightly. 'But did he say anything more, anything after you were wounded?' Yasmin shook her head,   
'Didn't you and OB watch what happened...?' she asked, J nodded and leaned back,   
'Of course but he took your contacts out, we lost connection soon after, they've been disconnected from our end, useless to him' she said, visibly annoyed to be talking about the man.   
'Who was he?' Yasmin asked, wanting to be healed already so she could find him.   
'He's not someone you need to concern yourself with' J said dismissively, 'Just get well' she rose and walked towards the door, where she stopped, lingering for a moment, 'Call Suki when you're out' she said, throwing another box with contacts in onto Yasmin's lap, 'Welcome to RECOR, agent Khan’ and she was gone.

Yasmin stayed in hospital for a few days. She put the contacts straight on and hid the box from the nurses. She didn't know the battery power of them or how they got their internet connection but she used them until she fell asleep most night, researching the event. Articles were everywhere about Grace Sinclair. CEO found dead. Lots of chatter. The RECOR system threw up everything from puff pieces to people celebrating in blogposts. Yasmin poured through it, looking for any reference to her, or the man, or any of what really happened. It seemed that the security guards were gotten rid of but they couldn't dissappear Mrs Sinclair. It was put down to a disgruntled employee, killing her over an unpaid bonus. Yasmin kept thinking of the sight of her dying, clutching her throat. Of the man's terrible grin. Of the pain as all the air was pushed out of her body when she was stabbed. 

After exhausting every piece of information about that night, Yasmin moved onto searching for her attacker. If J wouldn't tell her, that meant that he was high level. A bigger threat than a fresh agent should tangle with. She looked anyway. He was a ghost. Not a trace on any of the CCTV from that night, she even contacted OB to see if he had managed to track him as he left, but he replied that he couldn't give her any information until she was back in active service. She spent a while looking at her agent file, next to her name blinked MEDICAL LEAVE. One day in. It burned a little, she couldn't deny it. But she was still alive, and that was more than could be said for everyone else in that building, apart from the man of course. On the fourth day Yasmin checked herself out and after gathering her things, stealing civvie clothes from a rec room, removing her contacts, she slipped out a fire exit while two nurses shared a cigarette. The cold air was nice after the stilted aircon of the hospital. 

The door to her apartment swung open and caught on her now dry suit jacket and shirt, still in a heap on the floor. She sighed and slipped inside, slamming her door and breathing deeply. The apartment was musty and close. She crossed over to her blinds and reached through to open the window, let some air in. A sudden wave of fear hit her and she tensed, knowing something was wrong. She whirled around and her contacts were lit up in her pocket, a bright LED shining which had illuminated her peripheral vision. Annoyed at herself for jumping, she fished them out and put them in, getting used to the experience now. It beat getting stabbed anyway. J's avatar pulsed. Yasmin stared at it to open it up and her boss's voice rang out from her phone in her pocket once again, deju vu washed over her.  
'Took you long enough, four days for a stab wound, I'm usually out before tea' she said, not entirely joking.   
'I spent them researching the man, there's not a trace of him anywhere' Yasmin explained, as much to herself as J.   
'Yes, OB explained to me that you were rather insistent on that issue, so I thought I'd tell you again, he is not someone to concern yourself with, I order you not to look for him, if you meet again, abort mission, run, I can't lose another agent to that man' her voice wavered as she spoke, the professional detachment gone.  
'How many RECOR agents has he killed?' Yasmin asked plainly. The line cut. 

Yasmin slept properly, in her own bed, without the hum of machines and the patter of medical staff's feet disturbing her. In the morning only the sun climbing up her bed and finally landing on her eyes woke her. She stretched, winced, and got up gingerly to redress her bandages. She had a decently stocked first aid cupboard for such eventualities. Crossing the threshold into the living room she dropped her roll of bandages and stared at the man who attacked her standing in the doorway. He grinned, wide and awfully as he rushed her. Yasmin tensed and felt around for anything she could use as a weapon but he vanished in front of her eyes. He wasn't there, she told herself, she was hallucinating, or still asleep. She breathed deeply and closed her eyes, shaking herself out of the shock and fear that curled in her stomach in hot little tendrils. She noticed J's avatar pusling in the corner of her eye, she dragged it over. A sunshine emoji.   
'Good morning' Yasmin mouthed, to herself, before taking the contacts out and putting them in their case. She splashed her face with water, grabbed some food and went back to bed.

Yasmin woke with a start when J’s voice rang out, not through the slight filter in her earphone, but actually IN her bedroom. She snapped awake, tensing up at the suddenness.   
“Easy, shhhhh” J soothed, perching on the edge of Yasmin’s bed who drew the duvet up to cover up her nightwear.   
“Director...” she started but J waved her hand cutting her off.   
“Nice place, on the inside, tiny but nice” J said looking around the room, Yasmin couldn’t help but chuckle.   
“I bet you live in a mansion” she said before she could stop herself.   
“Just one, you’re thinking small Khan” J said smug but still sweet. Yasmin reached for a camisole on the floor and pulled it on, discarding the duvet.   
“How’s the scar?” J asked directly. Yasmin blinked.   
“It’s still pretty livid, don’t think it’ll ever really go” she admitted, looking down at her chest. 

“We all get them in this line of work you know” J said, leaning closer, almost imperceptibly, did she lean closer, Yasmin thought. “I have half a dozen doozies” she continued, definitely moving closer. Yasmin cleared her throat and awkwardly slipped out of bed. She had never been in an intimate situation before. When would she have had, she thought to herself defensively, school to training to RECOR. But this wasn’t an intimate situation, she told herself, J was her boss, she was checking up on her after an injury, perfectly normal. She realised that she’d been standing by her bed, her back to J for a few moments too long. She closed her eyes and the awkwardness was about to boil over when J moved over the bed and stood behind her, her hand brushing Yasmin’s wrist.   
“Listen, it’s okay, this happens, all the time, the man who...” she broke off for a second as Yasmin winced at the mention, “...did this to you, is very dangerous, you’re lucky to be alive, let alone home and trying to get back at him”  
All of her sweet words failed to impact on Yasmin who only saw her failure. But her hand on her wrist felt nice.   
“I’m going to get back at him” she said evenly, turning to face J.   
“I believe you” her boss said, glancing down at Yasmin’s mouth. They were very close now. Yasmin knew they were going to kiss, but still couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t figure J out. One moment she was sure she was impossibly flirting with her, the next she seemed the caring mentor, the next she was her detached, professional boss. But right now she was stood right in front of her, in her room, while Yasmin was in her underwear, and they were going to kiss.   
“Are we going to ki-“ Yasmin started to ask as J leaned in and they kissed. Light and new and soft. 

J drew away after their first kiss, stepping back and smoothing her suit jacket down impulsively, seeing her so awkward was cute, Yasmin thought fleetingly, before she stepped forward and slipped her hands onto J’s hips and kissing her again, wanting more.   
“Stop” J said, holding Yasmin’s hands against her sides, “We shouldn’t do this” she said exasperated. Yasmin blinked and nodded quickly, stepping back.   
“Of course Sir, sorry Sir” she said, falling back into her training, deference and respect. She found herself almost standing to attention, absurd in her current state. J’s face flickered, she cycled through emotions before she smiled tiredly, giving in,   
“I meant, maybe we shouldn’t...” she said coyly, raising an eyebrow. Yasmin felt whiplash from the rollercoaster that this night visit was. She cycled through some responses quickly but decided to speak from the heart.  
“Either you want me or you don’t J” she said shrugging slightly and opening her palms. J smiled slightly.   
“Yeah, some things are that simple aren’t they” she said, stepping up to Yasmin and taking her hands in her own. She kissed her again, more. Yasmin kissed back. They melted onto each other, their hands clasped tightly, fingers interlaced, as they moved up against the wall. J led the kiss, firmly, Yasmin let herself be taken over by it, moving instinctively, exploring. When she felt J’s tongue against her lip she parted them and let it in her mouth. This was too much, she thought wildly, her hands broke from J’s and slid up her toned back while J’s went for her stomach sending tiny excited jolts into Yasmin’s core. J nipped at her lip and Yasmin gasped lightly before doing it back. J laughed against her mouth and bit Yasmin’s lip hard this time. 

Yasmin’s thoughts were all over the place, she was happy, confused, horny, sore. J’s tongue sliding over hers pushed the thoughts away again. She pulled J close by her shoulders, they felt solid and warm against her hands. J’s hands slid up Yasmin’s tummy, under the camisole, towards her chest. She reached for Yasmin’s breasts but brushed the scar in her sternum. Yasmin cried out and pushed her away. J fell back and her eyes widened.   
“I’m so sorry, Jesus Christ what am I doing?” she said, looking around, snapping out of the haze brought on by their closeness. Yasmin stepped forward, her scar still searing, but still wanting her, but J was walking out the room. Yasmin let her go, lightly feeling her chest around the wound. She’ll be back in when she’s cooled off, she thought as her apartment door slammed shut. Oh.


	4. On Your Own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yasmin heals up and goes back to work, trying not to wonder why J hasn’t called...

Yasmin whiled away the rest of her recovery in the gym at RECOR. She hit the obstacle course over and over. She ran it until she could do it with her eyes shut. She also kept her contacts in their little case in her gym bag, only checking them once a night, most days. Some days she broke and checked them more. For three weeks, she heard nothing from J. OB, her techie handler fed her the usual RECOR updates, but since she had no official mission on he too was mostly silent. Yasmin found her days empty and isolated. Whenever she wasn’t working out, pushing herself to breaking, she would replay her last encounter with J. She didn’t regret it, she found. She would do it again, in fact. Finally she popped her contacts in to see a message from HQ, requesting a meeting the day after, an assignment. Smiling slightly at the alert, Yasmin ticked it off and headed for the showers.

Yasmin nodded at Suki as she arrived at J’s office.   
‘Agent Khan, take a seat’ the receptionist as warmly as she could manage. Yasmin sat. It felt strangely formal after what she and J had done, but hey, that’s office romances, she thought. Liking the idea, she had to stop herself from biting her lip. Be professional, she scolded herself. She waited half an hour, like last time, she thought, before Suki told her to go on in. Yasmin stood, adjusted her blazer and opened the door to J’s office. Without the sun streaming through the office, it looked a little cold, all marble and dark wood. The warm drenching sunlight wasn’t the only thing missing from the office. Behind the beautiful desk a different woman sat. She was older than J, blonde too but her air was entirely serious.   
‘Acting Director Stewart’ she said, offering her hand over the desk to Yasmin. ‘You have questions I assume’ she added. Yasmin shook her hand automatically and sat,  
‘Yes, what’s happened to the Director?’ she asked, completely blindsided but trying to remain placid. Stewart clasped her hands together and locked eyes with Yasmin,   
‘I was hoping you’d be able to tell me that’ 

Yasmin woke up with a jerk, she was disorientated, confused, and bound. Scanning her surroundings she deduced quickly that she was underground, tied to a chair. She’d been knocked out with something, a dart, she felt an irritation on her neck. Testing her restraints, and finding them solid, Yasmin sighed. RECOR trained her in anti-interrogation techniques. She would never forget those lessons. Retrace your steps, she thought. Last thing she recalled was waiting for a meeting at HQ. No, she had been in the meeting, J wasn’t there. Stewart, Director Stewart had been.   
‘I was hoping you’d be able to tell me that’ rang out in Yasmin’s head and she closed her eyes. They think I had something to do with it. Whatever it was.   
‘Bring the truth serum with you, I’m ready to take it and get out of this chair’ Yasmin called out into the gloom impatiently. She heard movement outside the door. Footsteps approached and a woman entered the doorway. The lighting was harsh and focused on Yasmin’s chair, so she couldn’t see the features of the woman in the doorway, just an outline. The shadow of a person stood there watching Yasmin who squirmed and said   
‘I had nothing to do with whatever you think I did, give me any test you like’   
The figure studied Yasmin silently for a while before leaving.   
‘Hey, get OB down here, he will be able to confirm everything I say too’ she yelled. 

RECOR had decided she was a suspect, despite having access to her movements at all times. Which meant, Yasmin knew, that something bad had happened for them to assume that their own surveillance couldn’t be trusted. She was worried about J. The footsteps returned and Yasmin decided to try her luck. She closed her eyes and let her head hang, going deadweight against her bounds. The figure rounded the doorway and waited for a minute, watching Yasmin before approaching.   
‘Wake up’ she growled, swinging her hand to slap Yasmin but she twisted her body, trapping her guard’s arm between her bicep and her ribs. She pulled the woman round roughly, and groped against her belt with her restrained hand. Her fingers closed around her keys, Yasmin thanked whatever power granted her such luck, and quickly angled the key towards the lock above her wrist. It hurt, but not as much as the guard’s fists digging into her ribs. Yasmin took it, successfully freeing her hand. The guard noticed and fled. Yasmin raised her eyebrows, feeling powerful. Then again a RECOR agent’s skill would be feared most by other RECOR employees, she reasoned. She unfastened the rest of her shackles and hopped off the chair massaging her wrists. Poking her head out the door and taking in the corridor outside, Yasmin slipped the key between her fingers, just in case she ran into any more guards. Watching from monitors, Acting Director Stewart seemed nonplussed. 

Yasmin swept through the complex of corridors and empty rooms with similar chairs. She kept her breathing level, eyes open, checked her six constantly, she was undoubtably being watched, she knew. Mentally treating it as a RECOR training test, she found stairs and started to climb. In a security room not far away, Stewart tapped a few commands out on a keyboard directly into the contact lenses of a trio of guards on the level Yasmin had just climbed up to. She heard their footfalls converge as the group rushed down the main corridor that Yasmin found herself in.   
‘I don’t wanna hurt any of you’ she stated, but the guards came at her regardless. Stewart stood from her chair, took a swig of whisky from a tumbler next to her keyboard, stowed the glass in the desk drawer and walked over to the door to the security office. She lingered at the door for a moment, listening closely to the sound of combat outside. Hearing what she needed to, she reached down and unlocked the door, then retreated back to her seat where she sat calmly.

The door burst open, Yasmin glanced in, then levelled a gun at Stewart for a moment before she dropped the firearm and shut the door behind her. Yasmin turned to the acting Director and kicked the gun over the floor. It slid to a stop at Stewart’s feet.   
‘I am not a traitor’ Yasmin said, only slightly out of breath. Stewart nodded.   
‘We know, I know, but we needed whoever is watching you to believe we didn’t’ she said evenly. Yasmin was on full alert, tensed up, adrenaline pumping, but she was relieved. Lies, trickery, and deception, a spy’s life, she thought, glad that her employer wasn’t fools.   
‘None of the guards are seriously hurt, they’ll wake up soon’ Yasmin explained.   
‘They don’t matter, the man who the Director went after does, I believe you’ve met, he leaves quite the impression doesn’t he’ Stewart said, her eyes glancing down at Yasmin’s chest, where her scar lay underneath her shirt.   
‘J went after him, alone?’ Yasmin asked incredulously.   
‘We believe so, she went dark two and a half weeks ago, last known location is on here’ Stewart said holdout out a tiny usb stick. ‘Passcode is your seventh alternate’   
Yasmin nodded, RECOR’s password exercises were rigorous, and took it.   
‘How do you believe I am being watched mam?’ Yasmin asked, her mind throwing J’s face up when she said mam.   
‘Could be your new contacts are hacked, or externally, we truly can’t tell at this time agent, but you need to go and find the Director, while seemingly on the run from us’ she explained, opening a drawer and withdrawing a glass. Yasmin was only just coming down from the fight. Stewart poured a drink and drained it before offering Yasmin the bottle, who refused.   
‘Got to stay icy’ Yasmin said flatly.   
‘We can talk in here because of the baffles, if he is monitoring you, he can’t see while you’re in here, but he needs to believe that this is pure coincidence, you need to shoot me’ Stewart said. Yasmin wished she’d taken the drink. 

Yasmin’s ears were ringing from the gunshot as she climbed the concrete stairs three at a time. She had to get to safe house Mercer, that’s all she knew right now. Safe house Mercer was RECOR’s last sighting of J. The HQ’s alarms rang out, good, she thought, someone found Stewart already. She knew that you didn’t get to a heartbeat away from Director without learning how to survive a bullet to the shoulder, but she couldn’t help worry. She would be hunted regardless, for appearances, but if she’d actually assassinated the acting Director, the dogs would truly be out.   
‘Left arm please’ Stewart had asked. Yasmin pushed the thought away as she crashed out of a fire exit and into a tight alleyway. She knew that no backstreets would be easily accessible so she clamoured up onto a fire escape and scaled the side of the building. She was starting to fatigue near the top. Her lungs pulled in cold air and she wished to be back in her room, with J. She felt silly whenever she day dreamed about her but they wouldn’t stop. Keep going, she thought to herself, you’re doing this for her. The rooftop was bitterly cold and Yasmin closed her eyes against the windchill. 

She ducked against a large Air con unit to get out of the howling wind and popped her contacts in. Navigating to OB in her contacts she connected to him.  
‘Blimey Yaz, I gotta call this in’ he said reflexively.   
‘Code bannerman/delta’ she said quickly, OB went quiet. ‘Copy?’ she urged.  
‘Copy that, long time since I last heard that, something big is happening then’ he said, sounding unnerved.   
‘You’ll have to mask that you’re helping me’ she said, the older man chuckled,   
‘Don’t you worry, no one will ever twig’ he said confidently, ‘what’s our business then?’  
Yasmin considered, she didn’t exactly know, not yet.   
‘I have to get to Mercer safe house’ she said.  
‘Uh huh, pinging you now, wait, you’re on the roof’ he said, ‘and there’s a lockdown at HQ’  
Yasmin stood and walked to the roof lip and looked about.   
‘I can’t reach any of the other rooftops’ she said defeatedly.   
‘I have an idea, but you might not like it...’ OB said clacking loudly on a keyboard his end. Yasmin shook her head,   
‘I’ll take any out at this point’   
‘J most likely left you a message on the contacts, she is known to code them carefully to only open for someone who is looking for it, try to remember anything specific that happened between you’ he said absently, unaware that he caused Yasmin to blush. Between you. Man, she thought, unprofessional, you’re in the middle of a getaway.   
‘I’ll have a think when I get a moment’ she said,   
‘Good luck with that for the next few’ OB said as a whirring noise grew closer. Yasmin closed her eyes resigned when she placed what the noise was from.   
‘Terrific’ she sighed. A drone, heavy, reinforced, crested the rooftop and hovered above Yasmin.   
‘Grab on’ OB said down the line.   
‘You’re enjoying this’ Yasmin said testily.   
‘I’m savin’ your life’ he replied, ‘I hope’

After a terrifying flight hanging off a drone, piloted by a cockney boffin sat comfy and warm in his office, Yasmin dropped to her knees on the ground and retched.  
‘Coulda warned me, didn’t need to see that’ OB complained. Yasmin wiped her mouth and got up, her stomach still flipping. The drone rose up and the buzzing faded to nothing, replaced by city noise.  
‘You can’t whine at me for the rest of the week’ she said. Yasmin stood, stretched, breathed deeply, and took off running, following the navi map on her contact lenses. OB had set her down a few miles from the safe house, incase anyone was watching it. Mercer was the basement of a tower block. Yasmin passed by a few youths on bikes hassling a brunette woman. Usually she’d intervene but she took opportunity as a distraction for her to slip into Mercer. She wished good luck to the woman as she approached a big, unassuming general waste bin. Kicking the wheel lock off, she pushed it aside and felt the wall behind it. She’d read a file on Mercer as she approached and felt for the dummy brick. She found it, pushed, and a hatch swung open. She had got to Mercer.

Through a short tunnel, Yasmin crawled out into Mercer safe house.   
‘I’m safe OB, cut comm for now’ she said and he disconnected. Mercer could not be more different from the tower block it was underneath. The walls were gleaming white and it was furnished like a five star hotel; a minimalist one but still. Yasmin clicked a button on the wall and the bin outside moved back in place and the wall sealed back up. She locked the system, so no one could get in, and the knot in her stomach loosened for the first time in a while. She knew all RECOR safe houses were laid out the same and she’d studied the blueprints at the academy. A shower was all that was on her mind. The water was warm and soothed her tensed muscles. She could have stayed under the stream all night but she knew she had to find more information on J. This was the last place she’d been on the grid and there was the possible message OB had mentioned. Something between them, she thought about their kiss, already a well worn memory. Wouldn’t be that, she thought, remember how it ended, with a slamming door. Something only they would know. Yasmin thought back to their first meeting. It came to her. She focused on her wrist and scanned her own pulse. As she did, a hidden message pinged and J appeared on a video message. Yasmin’s heart skipped a beat. Timestamped 18 days ago. She looked upset, but still radiant. It was recorded here, Yasmin noticed, looking round.   
‘Hey Yasmin, I hope you never have to see this, I hope I can tell you in person and delete this cache, but just incase, I’m leaving you these...’ she said, her tone made Yasmin’s heart ache. She turned and matched up the video of J on the bed with the real bed, like she was looking at her.   
‘I wish I hadn’t have left, hell I wish I had came back to see you before I started all this up again, I wish you were here’ J said, looking past the camera, Yasmin realised that she happened to be looking where she stood now.   
‘But you’re amazing so you‘ll be figuring all this out along with me’ she said a little too brightly. Yasmin smiled wanly along with her, this was a lot to take in.   
‘I’m going after the bastard who hurt you’ she said, turning to the camera again, her eyes were strong, Yasmin stared into them, ‘Then I’m going to come back and pick up where we left off’ she said. J blinked slowly, smiled and turned off the recording.   
Yasmin sat down on the bed and fell back into the still messy duvet.   
‘I’ll find you’ Yasmin said softly.


	5. What J Did

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> J and Yasmin admitted their feelings but something is stopping J.

20 days ago.

J was confused and pissed off, two things that she didn’t handle well historically, as she sauntered towards Death In Heaven. A night club with a deadly reputation that belied its corny name, J knew about it from her time before joining RECOR, it felt like another lifetime. Her beautiful suits were gone, replaced with a leather jacket over a white top, dark, fitted trousers and leather boots halfway up her calf. Battledress, she’d thought as she dressed from the cardboard boxes in her penthouse storage room instead of the walk in wardrobe. She knew she wouldn’t get near the club in anything that looked remotely expensive. J was confused about her feeling for Yasmin. She’d had flings with agents before, but this felt deeper than anything she’d ever experienced, and she had even been engaged before. Of course that was for an assignment but still. The cause of what pissed her off, was all her own fault. She was going to break a promise she’d made years ago. Then again, he had changed the terms. 

The club was heaving and the bouncers were out in force, patting down the queue and giving people shit. J felt the weight at her hip from her concealed weapon and kept walking, skipping the line completely. A few people called out to her but she didn’t break stride, not even when a bouncer tried to pat her down, she twisted out of his reach and strode towards the doors. Two particularly huge bouncers moved shoulder width and blocked the door as she reached it.   
‘Back of the line and maybe we will think about letting you in, after a trip to the security office’ the bald one said in a voice that was more growl than words.   
‘3W’ J said to the other bouncer. He blinked and touched his headset momentarily.   
‘Let her in’ he said eventually and begrudgingly to the bald one.   
‘No one jumps the line...’ he started but the other bouncer was ushering J past them.   
J smirked and thanked her luck that they hadn’t changed the passcode. She never bothered using it before; in the past she usually was escorted in. But that was years ago, none of the doormen from back then were on show tonight, she noted.

Descending down a short flight of stairs, J was swallowed up by a world of electric blue lighting, industrial corridors, the smell of damp, and the approaching pounding of bass. She passed by drunks and drugged up patrons hanging out in the twisting corridors towards the main bar, aware of how few eyes were on her. Good, she thought, if she was recognised, she’d be glad of the weapon she’d snuck in. Being head of RECOR didn’t win you any a special treatment among this mob. A cluster of clearly dangerous men were crowded round a doorway that led off the main corridor, as J passed she heard someone in distress within. The place hadn’t changed, she thought grimly. Don’t forget why you’re here, she thought to herself and she briefly remembered Yasmin’s uncertain but radiant smile. 

The dance floor was made into a mosh pit by the sheer number of patrons. The bar was barely visible behind the press of customers. J entered the belly of the club and scanned the room. Her RECOR contact lenses lagged from trying to identify every dancer and drinker in the room. With a few discreet, visually typed commands she narrowed the search to who she was here for. Someone slurred into her ear out of nowhere and J elbowed them blindly in the ribs. The music changed and the crowd surged the idiot away.   
‘Cmon, find him’ she whispered impatiently, with the volume of the music she could have yelled it. The contacts pinged and highlighted his thermal signature some fifty feet away. J turned her contacts back to active case interest scanning and worked her way through the crowd. Crossing the dance floor was harder than she anticipated. She lost her footing more than once, and threatened to pull someone’s piercings out when a bottle came perilously close to her head. Her contacts pinged someone to her right and J focused on them.   
SONYA KHAN.  
STUDENT.  
AGE: 17.  
CONTEXT: RELATION - YASMIN KHAN.   
She was pretty, like Yaz, and completely out of her depth here. J sighed and tagged her target before changing course for, who was she, digging into her bio, Yasmin’s sister, great, J thought. 

Sonya was dancing with a guy who was twice her age, J’s contacts told her, so she gave him a swift kick in the ankle and grabbed him by the neck when she reached the pair.   
‘Not this girl’ J breathed into the man’s face before giving him another dig in the ribs and throwing him aside.   
‘What the hell are you going?’ Sonya asked, J rounded on her, Sonya’s face was screwed up, in the mood to fight but not stupid enough to after seeing that.   
‘Go home child’ J said into the girl’s ear as commandingly as she could, but Sonya dug her heels in, almost visibly.   
‘And who are you, cause last time I checked my mum ain’t blonde’ she bit back, ‘I like him’ she said looked past J at the guy who was still bent double.   
‘If you don’t go home, now, Najia and Hakim will be picking you up within the hour, or do you wanna go and spent the night with your friend here instead, kebab on the way back, better than a shouting at eh?’ J said, she found it hard not to laugh at Sonya’s wide eyes the moment she heard her parents’ names. Sonya’s friend was staring at the pair of them, her loaded cocktail swaying with her as she watched confused.  
‘How do you know me, wait, did Yaz put you up to this, where is she, is she here?’ Sonya asked, looking round frantically. J checked on her target, shit, they were on the move, their thermal signature retreating deeper into the building.   
‘Yasmin isn’t here’ J admitted, ‘Just please go home, this isn’t a place for you’ she urged, dropping the bravado. Sonya looked like she was considering it, and her target was getting further away so J left her there. 

He had been spooked, J just knew it, as she crashed through a pair of double doors that let out into the backrooms of the club. The thermal outline was power walking through the complex. Then it started to run and J did the same. The contacts planned a route, following the path that her target had taken and J followed it though store rooms and tight corridors as fast as she could navigate them. Her chase finally opened up to a long corridor and she spotted her target as he vanished behind a door which slammed shut. He’d left two henchmen behind and they rounded on J. They made the bouncers seem like waifs, J shook her head, turning off the contacts so their overlays wouldn’t distract her. They approached slowly, clearly confident. She reached for the weight at her hip and produced a small metal handle. With a flick of her wrist, it telescoped into a baton. She gestured the pair of guards cockily and tensed her shoulders. J dodged the first swung fist of the taller guard and let the wider one overtake his partner. When he tried to grab at J and close the gap between them with a sudden movement, she leapt back and brought her baton up, catching the guard on the chin. He fell back into his mate, and J inverted her grip on the baton, and swiped it across his face again leaving a welt on his temple. With the wider guard knocked out, J stepped over him and goaded the taller. He jabbed and J ducked under it, stabbing her baton into the man’s groin. He crumpled to defend his core and J let his momentum bring his head into contact with the baton. He fell forward onto his buddy and J nodded at the neat pile. 

The doors that her target had locked splintered off their hinges suddenly as J held onto the jamb and double kicked them in.   
‘You coulda just spoke to me in a VIP booth Jack’ J said as she landed and straightened up in front of a desk, behind which a man in an absurd faux military getup sat with his feet up.   
‘Where’s the drama in that?’ He asked, his American accent sounded as cod as ever. J stepped forward, dragging a chair back upright before sitting on it and looking Jack in the eye.   
‘Where is he?’ She asked flatly. Jack extended his arms and pulled a face of confusion, but she saw through it and pushed, ‘Play a single game with me and this place closes tonight.’   
‘I don’t think even your super spy house can pull that off, but I really don’t know what you want’ he said, if her contacts weren’t proving him a liar, she’d have believed him.   
‘I could just knock you out and take the key you keep under that, interesting, jacket, and take it from the safe, along with everything else, I’m sure it’d fund RECOR’s Christmas party’ J said. Jack laughed, pointing at her,   
‘You ain’t lost it, that edge, the street can’t be washed outta you’ he said reaching for something on his desk, J stiffened, ready to launch at him, but he picked up a decanter and poured himself a drink.   
‘You wouldn’t say that if you saw my shower’ she said.  
‘I hope you aren’t flirting’ he grinned, swirling his glass.   
‘You’re not my type’ J said dismissively, ‘I’m sure you remember.’  
‘Ah yes, stole my Suzie away, and Gwen’ he said, draining the glass. J hit the desk impatiently,   
‘Where?’ She asked.

Yasmin was cleaning her apartment when there was a knock on the door. It was 4am. She didn’t sleep after J had left the other night, and it had made her part nocturnal for now. It was Saturday so maybe a drunken neighbour had stumbled to the wrong door, but she still snatched her gun up and stalked over to the door. Three more rapt knocks rang out.   
‘Yasmin’ a familiar voice called through the wood. She widened her eyes and her heart skipped a beat. She opened the door to J, drenched, but determined. They hugged but Yasmin recoiled from the wet, so J slipped her coat off, letting it drop to the floor as she shut the door.   
‘I’m so sorry about the other night, I jus had to think things through and I’m going after him’ she said the words quickly, almost garbled, as she stepped towards Yasmin and ran her hands up her sides gently.   
‘Wait what, you told me not to-‘ Yasmin started but J shushed her with a finger to her lips,   
‘I know but I’m not letting him go on walking around after what he did to you’ she said, dropping her hand to her chest and tracing her fingers round the bandages on her wound.   
‘Don’t I get a say?’ Yasmin asked softly. J looked up at her,   
‘Of course’  
‘Then yes, let’s get him, but only if we go after him together’ she said and J’s eyes softened. They kissed and hugged and tumbled into bed. They explored each other, hands and lips eager. J found herself on top of Yasmin, their body heat warming each other as they kissed and felt each other’s bodies. Yasmin’s hands grabbed at J’s hips and slid over onto her behind. J looked down into Yasmin’s eyes and saw hunger, lust, love. She pushed her hair over her ear and leaned down, kissing Yasmin deeply and running her hand through her hair. They moved as one, responding to each other instinctively, losing theirselves in each other.   
‘I’ve never...’ Yasmin said as J slid her hand down her tummy and between her legs.   
‘Do you want me to?’ J asked, stopping her hand, Yasmin closed her fingers round J’s wrist and pushed her hand down,   
‘Fuck yes’ she said, letting J part her and slide inside. 

Yasmin woke up in the afternoon and J brought her a glass of water.   
‘Didn’t expect you to be a snorer’ she joked as she handed it to her, Yasmin tiredly laughed and took a sip.   
‘Drain it dry-mouth’ J said watching her with a wan smile. Yasmin obliged and her eyes felt heavy,   
‘I’m so tired still’ she said before her head hit the pillow like a dropped stone.   
‘That’s Retcon for you babe’ J said sadly before taking the glass to the kitchen and scrubbing it with hot water and bleach, eliminating any trace from the memory drug she’d just dosed Yasmin with. She felt awful, especially erasing their first time, but she knew that Yasmin wouldn’t let her go after him alone. Not now she knew. She’d insist on coming along and she’d be at risk. They were both better agents when they worked alone, she knew, plus she needed every advantage against him. She lingered at Yasmin’s door after putting the apartment back as it was when she arrived. She watched her sleep and resisted the urge to go and kiss her head or hold her hand, or say goodbye. Leaving the apartment, J swallowed her feelings and vanished into the streets.


	6. On The Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yasmin has to find her attacker, J, and avoid RECOR, she has no idea where to start, so she goes back to the start

Now.

Yasmin slept at the safe house, in the sheets that J had, and she woke feeling better, if only for a few moments. The bare white walls seemed to hem her in so she got out of bed and paced the rooms, working on her contacts, looking for anymore hidden messages from J. She knew it was in vain, they were undoubtedly geocached. OB had messaged her that she was successfully hidden from RECOR systems, but still within them, and he fed her with the current standing orders concerning her. She was to be captured on sight. The enormity of those orders kept threatening to make Yasmin breakdown but she breathed and pushed the feelings down, she had a job to do. Find J. Follow her trail. A spy’s trail, she thought with equal parts dread and excitement. She had to get out of the safe house first though, its bare, starkness, and silence made her uneasy. Back above ground, Yasmin drew the nondescript winter gear that she had picked from the safe house stores close around her and stalked off towards the looming city. 

Ryan Sinclair was inundated with paperwork. He sat in his apartment with piles of the stuff on every surface, all needing signing and reading, with the latter thoroughly discouraged by the cadre of lawyers who seemed to live in his shadow since his gran died. He had been clubbing when she died. He’d missed the messages to his smart watch. He found out almost eighteen hours later when the after party stopped. He didn’t have time to grieve before the suits took over his life. He thought back over the past three weeks, he had been on tours of the empire he just inherited, ferried around endless meetings, shook more hands than in his whole life prior. Suddenly he was worth billions, and more suddenly he felt less of a person. He hadn’t been allowed to see his mates, security risks. He hadn’t been able to leave the house alone, more risks. His wrist cramped as he signed another long, multiple page form and he threw the pen away and stood up, shaking his head at the lawyer sat with him before he piped up.   
‘I’m getting some air’ he said bored, as he made for the balcony. 

Yasmin clambered up onto the balcony of Ryan Sinclair’s apartment just as the screen door slid open with a low rumble. She froze, then hopped into the shade. Ryan crossed to the railing and threw himself against it, muttering under his breath. Yasmin watched him from her hiding spot, he was agitated, her contacts showed that he had been largely quiet online, didn’t make a splash after he inherited Grace’s company. Maybe he was scared of the same fate, she wondered. Time to take a chance, she thought. Escape plan mentally made, she stepped forward with her hands up.  
‘Mr Sinclair’ she said calmly, Ryan jumped and shot round to face her. ‘Please don’t call for anyone, I really don’t want to have to jump off that balcony’ she said with as much levity as she could manage. He didn’t yell, but he was about to, quick, Yasmin thought.   
‘I was there the night your gran died. I saw who did it’ she said quickly. Ryan lifted his head slightly,   
‘You saw him?’ He whispered, glancing into the apartment at the lawyer who was engrossed in papers.   
‘I did, he tried to kill me too’ she said, motioning to her chest.   
‘Why didn’t you come to my people with this weeks ago then?’ He asked, getting suspicious.   
‘I was in recovery for most of that, plus I can’t risk him finding out, he’s got ears everywhere’ Yasmin said inching forward, bringing her hands down to her sides, he seemed to be curious.   
‘What are you here for?’ He asked.  
‘I need access to your company database’ Yasmin said flatly, ‘I know how big of an ask it is but I could have just taken it, I’m hoping you want answers as much as I do’ she finished, watching him expectantly.   
‘You want revenge?’ He asked eventually. Yasmin nodded. ‘For what he did to you?’ Ryan pushed.  
‘No, for what he might do to someone I care about’ Yasmin admitted. Ryan nodded, exhaling, then smiled,   
‘I’ll get you access, just tell me exactly what you need’ he said.

Ryan Sinclair distracted the lawyer by sending him, under much protest from what Yasmin heard from the balcony, to go and get fast food. Once the door closed Yasmin entered the apartment, Ryan brought a bulky suitcase over to Yasmin and laid it down on a table strewn with papers.   
‘They gave my this day one, said it’s the heart of the corporation, to treat it real careful like’ he said, hands on his hips as he stepped away from it. Yasmin bent at her knees and unlatched it. OB’s avatar pulsed to life.  
‘Right opened that port up’ he said into Yasmin’s ear. She did so, and he guided her through the complex process. Ryan watched pensively, checking the door every now and then.   
‘Don’t worry about the lawyer, he’s still in line’ Yasmin said, watching the man on one of the screens in her contacts.   
‘You're scary’ Ryan said. Yasmin smiled sweetly,   
‘Says the billionaire nineteen year old’ she finished up her work on the tech and pulled out a chunky memory stick.   
‘Thanks, would have been stressful getting this all done and hiding from you’ she said, stuffing it into her coat and closing the suitcase.   
‘No one will know anything’s missing’ she assured him. Ryan nodded and clapped his hands together,   
‘I don’t really care, just make whoever killed me gran pay, if you need any thing else, call me’ he said.   
‘Can’t risk you anymore than I already have, but thanks’ Yasmin said as she got into the elevator.   
‘Nice lad considering’ OB said in her ear.   
‘Enough chat, get sifting through, we need anything J might have found out’ she said stabbing the G floor button with a gloved finger.

19 Days Ago.

J almost went back to Yasmin’s the morning after she wiped her memory. She wanted to apologise and tell her everything, to kiss her again. But she knew that it wouldn’t change anything, Yasmin would insist on coming with her and she wanted her far away from that animal. The information from Jack was patchy but she knew the mark well enough to make sense of it. He was on the move but there were definitely some interception points she could exploit. Plus his initial target, Grace Sinclair, was a big clue. He hadn’t banked on being caught in the act, she saw that in his body language, heard it in his voice, Yasmin had unseated him. So why did he leave her alive? The thought kept resurfacing. There was not way that he didn’t mean to leave her alive. That man knew killing. It was for that reason J couldn’t involve Yasmin further. She’d already been spared once, why she didn’t know, but she did know that that man never spared you twice. She was in a car she had stashed in one of her many boltholes around the city. It was sleek, grey, unremarkable, with a dented hood because you never want to seem too forgettable, raised suspicions. Parked outside of one of the Sinclair assets, J watched the building. She could have got RECOR to send an agent or hack the info, but she knew that he’d be monitoring them. She also knew he wouldn’t be monitoring her, he had some warped sense of fair play when it came to her. She thought of Yasmin again. Nonsense, she told herself, she barely knew herself back then...  
A door opened round the back of the building and a guard stood in the doorway smoking. J got out her car, pulled her black mask on hopped a fence. She flattened herself against the wall and shimmied closer to the open door. The guard was steadily puffing his cigarette in the cold air, blowing heavy mist into the alley. J plucked a ball bearing out her pocket and whipped it across the alleyway where it pinged off the wall with a resonant pop. The guard stubbed his cigarette out hurriedly and fumbled for his torch, J slipped behind him while he panicked and was inside. 

Back in her car in less than five minutes with the downloaded database, J plugged it into her car’s computer and slaved it to her contacts. She inputted old code names and alerts that she hadn’t used for years and fed the new Sinclair database into a partitioned RECOR system. She bit her finger nails while the machine worked, too slow for their line of work, she thought testily, slamming the palm of her hand on the wheel when she tugged skin off her cuticle too hard. She looked up and saw someone stood in front of her car. The stance was unmistakable. He stepped forward into the orange glare of a streetlight and his dead smile swam into view. J shut her car’s systems down and yanked the memory stick out of the port, snapped it and slammed her foot on the reverse pedal. The car leapt back with a squeal and the man walked after it slowly. J turned the wheel and span the car round, it skidded and hit the kerb, shunting her about.   
‘J’ she heard him call behind her, through the glass, his voice manic, more of a roar. She glanced back, he was still following her, holding something in his hands now. J stepped on the accelerator and fought with the car to stay on the road. The screens flashed and beeped. J felt the car lurch to the right. She turned the wheel but it was useless, the wheels were moving on their own. The car smashed into a concrete bollard on the side of the road. J hit her head on the window. The car revved forward, then veered left. She braced herself as the car scraped along the brick wall of a building. J twisted her ring and pressed it against the windscreen. A sonic squeal ran out and the window smashed, showering her in balls of safety glass. She clambered out of the car and leaped off. Hitting the ground hard, she pushed herself to her feet and found herself face to face with the man she was looking for. He was fifty feet away.   
‘Hello J’ he called with genuine cheer that chilled her.   
‘Bye’ she called, running headlong towards a gap in the building nearest her. She heard him nonverbally growl as he gave chase. 

The alleyway didn’t dead end, thankfully, J thought as she ran.   
‘Who am I J?’ He called from behind her, his voice echoing down the tight alley. ‘Who am I?!’   
‘Someone way out of his depth’ she called back.   
‘Why run then?’ He raged. He had her there, she thought frantically as she squeezed out onto another street. She fished a small, flat circle from her pocket and dropped it to the floor before she chose a direction at random and started running again full pelt. A muted blast sounded behind her as the smoke bomb triggered. The man left the alley and staggered out into thick white smoke. J ran towards a petrol station that dominated a street corner ahead. She climbed onto a parked car, and vaulted up athletically onto the overhanging roof. Rolling into the middle, she lay flat and listened out.   
‘I know you’re near’ the man called, ‘I can smell you’ he said sounding deranged. J bit her tongue.  
‘Say my name, that’s all I need, for now’ he said, no longer angry. J closed her eyes and had to physically restrain her revulsion. She wanted to jump off the roof, rush him, finish it now, but it was too risky. She needed to have every advantage, and tonight was unexpected, she had been completely blindsided, and it had shaken her.   
‘I can find you anywhere, you and your new friend’ he demurred below her, he’d reached the petrol station. J held her breath and controlled her rage at him mentioning Yasmin. ‘She’s rather pretty isn’t she’ he continued. J couldn’t stand it.   
‘Maybe I’ll go see her, Charring Cross right?’ J broke, swung off the roof and charged at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year’s Eve everyone x


	7. Looking For Answers

J pushed the man over and drew her gun on him as he fell. He looked up at her staring down the barrel of her weapon, unfazed.   
‘I would love for you to pull that trigger’ he said, disturbingly truthfully. J’s skin crawled as he started to stand up. J aimed at his stomach and raised her eyebrows. He paused,  
‘You’re willing to die but bleeding out for days isn’t so appealing is it?’ J taunted, her lips were curled in scorn and disgust.   
‘Glad to see you still can’t stand to look at me’ he said in his whispery, too calm voice.   
‘You never change so why would that?’ She spat, refocusing her gun on his chest, ‘you hurt my...friend’ she said.  
‘Friend now is she?’ He said, tilting his head, ‘don’t like them scarred?’  
‘Shut up’ she said through gritted teeth.  
‘No, I’ve waited a long time to see you again, you wouldn’t believe the planning...’ he was cut off when a siren blasted down the street, followed by the glare of blue lights. J turned to look at the approaching police car and the man took his chance, kicking her with both feet in the stomach. J was sent flying, it was all she could do to keep her grip on her gun. She kept her feet, pinwheeling her arms round to stay upright, but he was gone.   
‘Koschei!’ J screamed. 

Now. 

Yasmin paid for a room at a Travelodge with cash and shut the door behind her with relief. Every step outside had been fraught with tension, worrying about RECOR agents looking for her. It seemed inevitable that they would find her, so she hoped that she would have enough evidence for Stewart by then. OB had gone dark but it was late so Yasmin wasn’t worried about the old geezer. She showered and put her contacts in, trying to track down the nearest semi-friendly chopshop. Yasmin needed somewhere with enough tech to decode and interface with the Sinclair system, and somewhere with just enough of a grudge against RECOR to not sell her out. The bed wasn’t comfy but she was so tired that it lulled her to sleep not long into her search. 

Midnight - 18 Days Ago.

J clicked the fake brick that opened up safe house Mercer and ducked inside. She was seething. Embarrassed, angry, sore, and eager to carry on the hunt. Inside, the spartan decor greeted her coldly and she made straight for the pristine bed. Sitting down on it, she set her contacts to record from the safe house’s security cameras and she spoke to Yasmin. It felt good to talk to her, even through a recording.   
‘I wish I hadn’t have left, hell I wish I had came back to see you before I started all this up again...’ she felt sick lying to her like that. She’d tell her, she promised herself, once Koschei was dealt with, she’d tell Yasmin about the Retcon, about their first time.   
‘I’m going after the bastard who hurt you then I’m going to come back and pick up where we left off’ J finished the recording and sighed.   
‘If you’ll still have me’ she said to the empty room. She coded the message and sent it to Yasmin’s contacts, geo locked to only open at this location. Her stomach hurt from being kicked, she rubbed it, then pressed, feeling the pain flare.   
‘RECOR directive 13, pass: FAM010121’ she said aloud. At RECOR HQ, her ID file locked, her systems purged itself of all of her active data, her link to the mainframe was severed, she had gone dark.

Now. 

The door to Yasmin’s room clicked as someone tried the handle. Yasmin woke with a start, rolled off the bed and shimmied underneath in a quick, practised movement. The academy taught you to sleep lightly out in the field. The door creaked loudly every inch. Yasmin watched the feet of the intruder, furrowing her brow; scuffed trainers. They shuffled in, a mop bucket trailing behind them. Relieved, Yasmin cursed under her breath, she’d have to stay hidden now. The awkwardness of climbing out from under the bed would be too great. The cleaner walked achingly slowly across the tiny room, Yasmin rolled her eyes, this would take a while. As she was about to put her contacts in, an unmistakable pneumatic pump of air sounded. The cleaner keeled over and was unconscious, her glasses smashing and flying off. Yasmin could see the door reflected in the intact lens. An agent. RECOR given the sleeping dart lodged in the cleaner’s neck, if it were her attacker it would have been a bullet. Yasmin knew that the dart guns had a capacity of one and took a moment to reload, now, she thought. She vaulted out from under the bed and got to standing in a single movement. The agent gasped and reached for more darts. Yasmin reached him first and planted her fist under his chin. The man’s head snapped back and fell. Yasmin caught and manoeuvred him onto the bed. He was only following orders, she thought, hoping she hadn’t hurt him too badly. She put the cleaner on the other bed and gathered her things. While she was confiscating the agent’s dart gun and ammo, Yasmin realised that his contacts would be recording her. Was Stewart back at HQ right now, watching her?   
‘If you’re all watching me then listen to this’ Yasmin said, trying to convey an arch tone that a traitor might, ‘if acting Director Stewart sends you after me, good luck’ she said grinning as she shut the door behind her. She hoped that her luck maintained, if would be embarrassing to be caught after that line. 

As she traveled, she thought about J, that first day in her office. The way she had tested her with close combat. The way she moved, trained, precise, Yasmin had been attracted to her straight away. Almost wished she wasn’t, it felt so impossible. But then J had came to her, kissed her, touched her, until she reached her scar and she had left suddenly. She sighed, the last time she was her was an argument. Clearly J had thought a lot since though, that message just three days after, she’d seemed softer, more sure of them.   
‘I’m going to come back and pick up where we left off’ Yasmin repeated smiling. They would, she would make sure. On the run from RECOR, chasing a cold trail, with a deadly, unhinged, madman at the other end to take down. Worth it for her, she thought. 

The chopshop she settled on was working out of the back of a chippy. Glamorous, Yasmin thought as she watched it from outside. No customers seemed to go behind the counter in the hour Yasmin staked out the place so she called OB.   
‘Oh get me some cockles cockle’ he said, proud of his joke. Yasmin rolled her eyes.   
‘I saw that, I’m in your eyes’ he said indignantly.  
‘How do I get in?’ She asked.  
‘Round the back, knock the door 8 times rapid then wait 16 seconds and knock 3 times’ he said, his joking voice indistinguishable from his serious.   
‘Thanks OB’ Yasmin said, suddenly realising the risks he was taking, even if Stewart was on their side, anything could happen in the meanwhile. Yasmin did the knocks, feeling faintly ridiculous. Eventually the door opened and a woman in glasses and a jumper ushered her in. The backroom was packed with tech, screens glared from every wall, wires were stapled in thick, black channels zig zagging everywhere. Another woman, in glasses, a twin, distinguished only by an incongruous scarf, was busy typing on several keyboards when they entered.   
‘Business or pleasure?’ The scarf twin asked without looking up.  
‘Business, need a high level trace and scour of a company mainframe’ Yasmin explained.   
‘Any attempt been made?’ The jumper one asked.  
‘Yes but my associate can’t run it on a partition’ the twins both raised their eyebrows.  
‘Espionage within espionage’ they said together, Yasmin repressed a shudder.  
‘Triple usual fee’ jumper said. Yasmin nodded, messaging OB to secretly transfer RECOR funds for her. He messaged back dour emojis but she knew that he could manage it.   
‘Okay hand over the hardware’ scarf said. 

Noon - 18 Days Ago.

J spent hours sieving through the data she liberated from the Sinclair building, looking for anything that Koschei could have been after. He had killed their CEO, but for him that would have just been a sadistic bonus, J knew. He was in the penthouse looking for something, if J could find out what, she might be able to track it down before he did. Yasmin had interrupted him, so he couldn’t search for it. Her first mission, she’d been so brave, fighting him. J remembered watching through her eyes, fearing for the girl the moment she saw him. Her guilt after Yasmin’s contacts flatlined. Then the elation she felt when she was found alive. Focus, she thought, the suits at Sinclair would have moved anything sensitive before the police and press descended. Then Koschei had been at the same Sinclair building that J had, last night. He was there to steal from their database too, but I beat him to it, she thought with some satisfaction. Just when she was about to give up, J found it. She put her hand over her mouth,   
‘Oh’

Now. 

The twins sat Yasmin down in front of a terminal and let her search the database in peace. Unsure what she was looking for, she keyed OB in on her contacts. He took over, guiding her with what to type and they searched the database. Once they broke through a few layers of code, Yasmin’s contacts pinged another cached message.   
‘OB, I’ll call you back’ Yasmin said hurriedly, hanging up and opening the video file. J was still back at safe house Mercer, she noticed, 6 hours after her first message.   
‘If you’re seeing this you’re on the right track, good, sorry love I just...’ she trailed off, Yasmin’s heart skipped at being called love, ‘Grace Sinclair was the only board member who voted against it, so of course he killed her’ J said. Yasmin’s brow furrowed, she was confused but the video of J read her mind.  
‘Sorry, right, the man who hurt you is called Koschei, he used to work with me, for me, he is extremely dangerous and he is after something that Sinclair had in development, a weapon’ J looked rattled, ‘search the database for the term: Archangel, and babe, be careful, I don’t know how far behind me you will be, but I can’t guarantee anything anymore, not with this in play’ she said gravely. Yasmin closed her eyes after J’s image faded, for a few moments, missing her, before she typed in Archangel. The database filtered all the results and Yasmin clicked on the first one.   
‘Oh my-‘


	8. What’s At Stake

Yasmin got up from the terminal feeling numb. She breathed in and out deeply, focusing on her pulse. Her contacts unhelpfully flooded with pings as OB reacted to the data on his end. She muted notifications and let her heartbeat slow. The academy taught this endlessly, she never could get it perfectly under control, but she managed to level herself out quickly. The twins approached her,   
‘What did you find?’ Scarf asked. Jumper watched, picking her nail beds.   
‘Archangel is a system of satellites that can remote detonate 25 nuclear devices’ Yasmin said, barely able to believe her own words.   
‘What?!’ Jumper blurted out.   
‘That would wipe out all life’ Scarf said incredulously.   
‘I guess it was meant to be the ultimate deterrent but...this man is after it and J seemed...seems pretty sure he could get it’ Yasmin said, starring at the floor, this was all too much, world ending stuff, she was a year one spy. She thought she’d be planting bugs, watching buildings, maybe a gun fight or two, but this.   
‘Who?’ Jumper asked stepping forward, picking her fingers aggressively. Scarf noticed and slapped her hand to stop her.   
‘Koschei’ Yasmin said, the name strange to her mouth. 

Jumper’s eyes widened.   
‘Koschei, codename: Master?!’ She asked, panic taking hold. Scarf crossed over to a computer screen, clacked some keys and brought up an image of the man, Yasmin nodded and looked away from his mad eyes.   
‘Are you sure?’ Jumper pressed, stepping up to Yasmin.   
‘Pretty sure, you don’t forget someone who stabbed you’ she said, stepping back. Jumper blinked and shook her head,   
‘No I guess you don’t, sister we have to help’ she said to Scarf.   
‘Absolutely’ she agreed, already running a trace on Koschei.   
‘You won’t find him’ Yasmin said.   
‘RECOR couldn’t maybe’ Scarf said confidently. Yasmin didn’t entertain the idea that they would find a trace for a second, and she was right, after a few minutes Scarf cracked the screen with her elbow.   
‘Whats the point of all this tech if you can’t even save the world with it’ she growled as she turned round to see Jumper chewing her nails. ‘Stop!’   
‘I think it’s warranted now Sis’ Jumper mumbled. Yasmin needed some air. 

The back alley of a chip shop being not sufficiently fresh, Yasmin walked across the road and found herself in a small urban wood. There was rubbish caked in the undergrowth, all trodden down packaging and plastic but at least it was quieter in here, she thought. 18 days. J had had 18 days to go after Koschei, Master, whatever. Yasmin had no idea where to start but she knew J had left her a trail. 18 days was a long time though, she thought. The fact that she was learning about a world ending plot, so late, wouldn’t leave the front of her mind, how much time had she wasted just moping around her flat, working out at RECOR. How did RECOR not know anything about this! This Koschei really must be as good as J said. Yasmin sighed to break her train of thought and looked up at the sky. She couldn’t see much for the light pollution but the moon was shining bright. Letting her eyes adjust, she really searched for stars, it was suddenly very important that she found one. A feeble, far off light eventually revealed itself to Yasmin directly above her. She watched it, drew strength from it, nodded to herself, and finally called OB. 

‘Blimey Yaz, next time we learn the world is ending don’t lemme think you’ve gone and had an coronary’ he moaned the moment he answered.   
‘I know I’m sorry, just needed a moment’ she said genuinely sorry.   
‘Ere you didn’t tell those twins didja?’ He asked quickly.   
‘They know, they told me Koschei’s codename...’ she started but OB cut her off,   
‘Those girls are into everything, but they don’t know him, not like J does, if anyone can stop him, it’s her’ he said, as though convincing himself as much as Yasmin.   
‘She’s had 18 days to move against him OB’ Yasmin said, the pessimism that had been building since she found out threatening to overwhelm her.   
‘J is different, you must know, she just is, she always comes out alright, never seen her fail’ OB said proudly.   
‘She must not have wanted me to follow her, or she’d have came to me, told me, but she left the messages as, I don’t know, a failsafe’ Yasmin said.   
‘I’ve been working on breaking the geo lock, so we can watch them all now, but it’s too well done’ he admitted. Yasmin shook her head,   
‘No she meant it this way, she needs me to figure it out for some reason’   
‘There isn’t a trace of the pair of them anywhere in the last 18 days’ OB said.   
‘How can RECOR not know about something this big?’ Yasmin asked, OB didn’t answer. ‘OB?’ she pressed.   
‘Sorry just thinking about that myself’ he said confused, ‘I’ll have a dig around’ he said hanging up. Yasmin cleared her contact lenses of extraneous info and looked back in the direction of the chopshop. She could go back there, team up with the twins. She opened the Contacts on her contacts. J’s avatar and name hovered there, overlaid on her vision over a wilting rosebush nearby. She stared at the name and attempted to call her. After it rung off, Yasmin cried. Only a couple of tears, hot against the cold night air, before she blinked them away and trudged off out the woods.

Now. 

‘Someone called you’ Koschei said calmly, from the door of the cell. J looked up,   
‘Did they leave a message?’ she asked disinterested.   
‘Nearly a week and still bolshy, accept it, you’ve lost’ he said, pacing on the threshold.   
J smiled, wide and mockingly,  
‘You really think you caught me don't you’ she asked, Koschei sneered.   
‘Of course you won’t admit it, wouldn’t fit your little world would it, I don’t know why I don’t just get it over with’ he said, tracing his fingers against the reinforced glass of her prison cell’s door.   
‘Cause you’re too scared of me’ she said, not looking at him, ‘and you’re right to be, probably the only sane thought in your head’ she looked at him, and he looked away, laughing.  
‘Big talk’ he said, grinning, ‘but no, I’m not scared of you J, I’m keeping you alive so you can watch me finish what I started, that’s why, sorry, scatterbrain’ he said before leaving the doorway. J smiled, only one person still had her Contact live, she’d factored that into her data purge. Only one bridge she didn’t burn, Yasmin had called her. She was coming. Good, yes very good. 

The Next Morning. 

Yasmin slept on a pullout bed that the twins had lent her on the floor of their chopshop. How she managed to sleep with all the whirring and the blinking lights, she didn’t know but she woke up just before noon refreshed. The twins had been hard at work while she slept. Yasmin poured over details of the Archangel Network. It essentially hacked another system; the Osterhagen Project. Each satellite was keyed to one of the sites that contained a nuke installed under the Earth’s crust and with control of them, Koschei could undo the planet. Yasmin felt sick thinking of it. The fact that on her planet, people had worked on this, went through with it.   
‘Twenty five’ Jumper said, staring at her fingertips, but resisting the urge.   
‘What if we disable the satellites?’ Yasmin offered, knowing that they had exactly zero means to do so.   
‘We’d need to tell other agencies, maybe even the government’ Scarf said, spitting the last word.  
‘They’d never believe it, they always think their security is absolute, until it’s not’ Jumper said.  
‘I don’t usually crash in someone’s place without knowing their names, who are you two?’ Yasmin said, realising with slight embarrassment that she hadn’t asked.   
‘Petronella Osgood’ Jumper said.   
‘Bonnie Osgood’ Scarf said.   
‘Blimey did two different people name em?’ OB said suddenly connecting to Yasmin’s contacts.  
‘Hey OB, what’s happened?’ She asked.   
‘I did some poking around RECOR right, this whole thing is beyond weird, I had to get out of there, I’ve already left the offices, trying to find somewhere I can work from’ he sounded like he was half running.   
‘What, you’ve left HQ?’ Yasmin asked, furrowing her brow, ‘what’s happened?’  
‘RECOR is compromised, theres no mention of Archangel or Osterhagen in the systems, nowhere, not even the Director’s files’ he added sheepishly.   
‘I won’t dob you in OB, I’m still RECOR enemy number one remember’ she said, running her hand through her hair.   
‘Anyone who can delete that kind of data being in the system means trouble, better for me to scarper, it won’t change anything though, I can hack anything from anywhere’ he said confidently, Yasmin could almost see his chest puffing out.   
‘Okay just get safe, over and out’ she said cutting him off.   
‘Did I just hear that right?’ Bonnie asked.   
‘Overhear, and yeah, RECOR has nothing on any of this’ Yasmin replied.  
‘I’m chewing, I don’t care’ Petronella said and Bonnie didn’t try to stop her. 

Elsewhere. 

‘So how many seconds are there in eternity?’ A curious voice asked out of nowhere, rousing J. She turned on her bunk and looked out the cell door. A woman was stood in the doorway, she was blonde, short, a strong away with the fairies look plastered on her face.   
‘What?’ J asked.   
‘How many seconds in eternity, you’ve been saying it for days, I googled it, Brother’s Grimm, but I’m not much of a reader, didn’t wanna sift through it, so, how many seconds are there?’ She spoke with a childlike cadence, but she was a full grown woman. J looked down at the silk red dress, then back up at her open face, bruises were covered in makeup but still visible if you looked hard enough.  
‘He’s done a number on you’ J said sliding off her bunk. Pretending not to notice, the woman crossed her arms,   
‘So, tell me’ she asked.   
‘There ent an answer, that’s the point of story, it’s a feeling’ she explained, pressing her hands against the glass of her cell door. The woman frowned,   
‘That’s silly’ she concluded.  
‘You know what I think is silly?’ J said leaning closer to the glass. The woman did so too, shaking her head imperceptibly, ‘that you think I’d fall for this’ J called out, shouting at the ceiling where a camera undoubtedly watched her. The woman outside giggled.  
‘He never stops talking about you’ she as her laughter died down.   
‘Never mentioned you’ J shot, laying back on her bare bunk.   
‘I’m his wife, Lucy’ she said proudly.   
‘And I’m J, now go away’ she said, turning her back on the cell door. Lucy snorted, turned and walked away, but glanced back at the cell for a moment. Koschei met her at the end of the cell block corridor.   
‘Good, but next time, make her trust you, if you can’t...’ he pulled his suit jacket open and showed her a small device in his pocket. Lucy stiffened and nodded,   
‘Yes Master’ she said fearful, and he pushed her into the elevator and pressed the button. J heard the lift rise and carry them away from her cell. Just when she thought she couldn’t hate him more, he paraded another broken person out to taunt her. An image of Yasmin, broken like that, came to her and she pushed it away, sickened.   
‘Not you, never’ she said to herself, ‘not long now love’ she said to Yasmin, wherever she was.


	9. Allies

Yasmin thought her lungs were going to burst as she ran full pelt for what seemed like an eternity. She focused, remembering her endurance training. Her pursuers were probably RECOR, but knowing that they would be non-lethal if they caught her was no comfort, she had to stay free, for J, for the world. About fifteen minutes after she had left the Osgood’s chopshop she had noticed that she had a tail. OB was currently hacking their feeds, giving Yasmin warnings of where to feint, where to hide, when to run. They were good though, and Yasmin was exhausted. The wound in her chest might reopen, she worried. She found herself running through some residential gardens, hopping fences, swerving round kid’s paddle pools and discarded footballs.   
‘OB I swear, get them off me’ she growled.   
‘It’s hard!’ He complained, his keys clacking furiously.   
‘Don't hear you panting, wherever you are’ she said, risking a glance over her shoulder. Three agents were clambering over a fence after her. They really were out for her. She wished that Stewart would downgrade her Wanted status at least.   
‘Go through the house on your right, through the french window there’ OB said frantically. Yasmin veered, raised her arms protectively, and crashed through it. The glass scattered on the hardwood floor and Yasmin barrelled into the small dining room.   
‘Down the hall, left, right, through the window’ OB supplied. Yasmin tried not to feel bad for the homeowners but couldn’t help it, she’d cost them a decent amount of money and a lot of confusion whenever they found the mess.   
‘Can’t you credit their bank account or something?’ She asked, OB snorted,   
‘Oh and what with, I can’t use RECOR funds anymore, that went bye bye when I had to bail didn’t it, also, I’m not picking up a wage anymore, you should be paying me!’ He ranted, as Yasmin snaked her way through the house.  
‘Okay, second priority after saving the entire world, OB’s pension’ Yasmin panted as she elbowed the window glass out and hauled herself through.   
‘Graham’ OB said suddenly.   
‘Nice to meet you Graham, now where the heck do I go next?’ Yasmin asked half wheezing. 

Ten minutes more running later Yasmin ducked into an alcove between two buildings and pressed her back against the bricks.   
‘They’re almost on you’ Graham said.   
‘I can’t...’ Yasmin said getting her breath back. The footfalls of her pursuers rang out in the alley and she willed herself to get off the wall and keep on running, but she heard one of them talking. A familiar voice. Suki. J’s assistant. No, surely not, just sounded like her...Yasmin tuned her contacts to scan the bio signs down the alley. RECOR bios were available. She cycled through some unknown names, then yes, Suki Macrae Cantrell.   
‘If we don’t catch up to her and convince her soon...’ Suki said to her cohorts, there were five of them now, their deep breaths filling up the alley.   
‘Tried messaging her lenses as we went, they’re deadlocked’ one explained breathily.   
‘She’s on the run from us, of course she isn’t taking calls’ Suki said, Yasmin could imagine the rolled eyes in lieu of seeing them.   
‘I didn’t work with Suki much, but she sounds genuine here Yaz’ Graham said into her ear. Yasmin nodded, she heard it too, the ring of decency. But she couldn’t risk it all on a hunch, she stayed back. As though she could read minds, Suki called out into the alleyway  
‘Yasmin Khan, we aren’t here to take you in, we want to help’ 

‘We knew that J wasn’t just MIA, she wasn’t that type, had to be something massive, and Stewart, well she was about as useful as a cardie in the Arctic’ Suki told Yasmin over a coffee. The tiny cafe was filled up when the seven of them shuffled in, all black tactical gear and barked tea orders.   
‘Stewart knows, she told me but she’s keeping RECOR out of it, she thinks that this Master is able to surveil the agency and he couldn’t know’ Yasmin explained. Suki wrinkled her brow,  
‘Wonder why she didn’t try to assemble a team under the radar’ she said.   
‘Maybe she did, hopefully she did, but RECOR has been compromised, I don’t know who, or how, but it’s database has been completely wiped of any info on Project BlueBox’ Yasmin said, using a random name to gauge Suki’s knowledge.   
‘Is that what Master is after? What is it?’ Suki whispered, leaning in. So her little contingent had left RECOR on blind loyalty to J. They knew nothing about Archangel. Then again, they could be lying. Yasmin looked down at the tea she’d ordered. She fully intended not to drink a drop, but the disgruntled cook had made it clean, she had watched intently, and no one had managed to spike it yet. She shuddered at the thought of being dosed with Retcon. They’d learnt about it in the academy, it was as tactical memory wipe drug, left no trace. The idea of having your life stolen like that made Yasmin feel queasy. She had thrown in with Suki because her vital signs showed that she was telling the truth, but she could be being used. Double agent, triple. Yasmin just didn’t know. She leaned in too,   
“J found out that Sinclair Industries had a hand in building a weapon, that’s why Koschei attacked and killed Grace, and when I walked in, his search for the weapon was cut short’ Yasmin said, knowing that Suki had been on the call too, J trusted her that much at least. Suki took it all in and nodded,   
‘Makes sense, I couldn’t figure out what he gained from that hit, beyond just fulfilling a contract, but he never was the sort...’ she trailed off, looking at something out the window. 

Yasmin reacted before anyone, ducking under the table just before a hail of bullets shattered the glass fronting of the cafe. Chaos. Flying glass, the impossibly loud cracks of gunfire, thumps as people hit into each other, chairs upturned, debris flew, a cooked breakfast exploded on one of the tables. Yasmin brought her feet up and propelled herself across the floor, aiming for the counter. It would be some protection, she thought.   
‘I’m hit’ someone called out, shocked, before standing up and firing wildly out the front of the cafe. Yasmin got to her knees and crawled round the counter. The struck RECOR agent took three steps forward, firing blindly into the street before his head snapped back with a mist of red and he fell down dead.   
‘Everyone stay in cover god damn it’ Suki called from somewhere in front of Yasmin. They'd been sitting ducks, and they were paying for it, she thought. The cook was cowering behind the counter when Yasmin reached it,   
‘Are you okay?’ She asked him, and he checked his apron before looking up and nodding.   
‘Right, good, back exit?’ Yasmin asked gesturing the door behind them, the cook nodded again, realisation dawning on his face suddenly. He stood up, Yasmin tried to grab him but he grabbed the door handle, managed to open it but then a bullet passed through his neck and he collapsed in a heap.   
Yasmin unholstered her gun and knelt behind the counter. She used the built in display cabinet to peek out on the battlefield. A tiny cafe turned into a war zone. Suki was relatively safe behind the brick ledge that used to have a large pane of glass making up the front of the cafe protruding from it. Four of the other agents were using the tables as cover. Once the attackers advanced however, these tables would be useless Yasmin knew.   
‘I’ll cover you, get behind here’ Yasmin yelled before resting her gun, clutched in both hands on the counter top and firing at their attackers. They were crouched behind two SUVs that had parked round the cafe’s entry, boxing them in. 

Three of the agents made it safely behind the counter and joined Yasmin in covering fire, but one caught a bullet and went down. Suki was left down by the front, pinned down.   
‘Crawl’ Yasmin called but Suki shook her head.   
‘Get out, I’ll deal with them’ she said shakily.   
‘Pointless waste’ Yasmin called out, ‘cover me, I’m going for her’ she told the other agents, but Suki put her hand out to stop her,   
‘No, you’re too important to the mission’ she said with a finality. Yasmin tried to move but an agent held her shoulder,   
‘Mam is right, you’re priority’ he said.   
‘Good man Mickey’ Suki called, ‘you’re squad leader now, now get out’ she said, pulling a device from her pocket. Yasmin’s breath caught in her throat as she realised what it was and the agents started to retreat, climbing over the body of the cook. The back of the cafe was dingy and close, the four of them were squished into it while one of them tried to operate the gate.  
‘Lock is rusted’ one said, fiddling with a lock pick.   
‘Kick it in’ another offered.   
‘Climb it’ Mickey ordered. The agents scaled the fence and swung over the top. Yasmin climbed over in four swift movements and Mickey followed last. The moment his feet touched the ground, the cafe exploded. 

‘We been in partnership five minutes and two of us are dead, this really is serious isn’t it’ Mickey said solemnly as they rode in the back of a van that they had commandeered a couple of streets away from the cafe. Yasmin was still trying to comprehend how the day had gone so sideways so fast. Suki was dead. She’d lied to her and now she was dead.   
‘Right listen up, we’re going after Koschei, codename Master, maybe some of you have heard of him’ she addressed the others. ‘J, director J was on his tail when she went dark, she left me instructions to follow her in this eventuality’ the agents were listening closely, even the one driving was craning his neck to hear.   
‘Is the Director alive?’ One asked, Mickey shot him a look.   
‘I don’t know, but I believe she is’ Yasmin said after a moment. ‘Master is after Archangel, he has stolen a way to weaponise the satellite system to remote detonate a chain of nukes under the earth’s crust, Project Osterhagen’ the van was filled with disbelieving grunts.   
‘How come we’ve never heard of this thing?’ One asked,   
‘Quiet, she outranks you Barkley’ Mickey snapped. Yasmin waved her hands dismissively,   
‘I don’t care about rank or protocol, if you don’t believe me then get out the van now, we have to stop Koschei, and get J back’ Yasmin said resolutely.   
‘Right, broadcasting to you lot, I’ve managed to make an oasis on your contacts, you’re all synced up now, if you won’t listen to Yaz then listen to me, OB here, you’ve all heard of me’ OB said to everyone, who all seemed to sit up a little straighter, Yasmin looked around incredulously.   
‘The Director is in danger and the Master is threatening the planet, if RECOR was made for one thing, it’s for this, now put your heads together and work out a way to stop it’ he said, before cutting the line, only staying open for Yasmin to whom he said, ‘don’t like to pull the old living legend card often but needs must’ he said cheekily.   
‘That was OB’ Barkley said amazed. Yasmin felt dazed, so her back room boffin was a RECOR legend apparently. Terrific. Still, it had worked, the team didn’t ask any more questions, instead came up with ways they could be more effective for the rest of the drive, leaving Yasmin to debrief Mickey on what they had so far.


	10. Jousting

J was sick of her cell. She knew that Koschei wouldn’t let escape be possible but it didn’t stop her from planning. She could wait until the little slot that the mute guards would slide her daily meal through was open, dash across from her bunk, grab their ankle, pull them down, hope they landed in the exact right spot, and swipe their keys, if they even carried keys. But of course they wouldn’t, and then she’d just be starved until she wouldn’t dare making a dash for the slot when her next meal was granted. She hated Koschei, so much. It burnt her insides. She couldn’t get that woman out of her head, Lucy, was it. So childlike and broken. He did that. He was likely trying to break her too. But she kept hold of the fact that she let herself be caught, she wanted to be here. She had to be here. What she had found out was huge. His plans were horrific and world ending. And she couldn’t trust her own company. The only person she trusted was Yasmin. She didn’t know why, but that girl had her complete and utter trust. It wasn’t just their connection, although she was lovely. J thought about Yasmin’s conviction, her strength, if she was following her trail, she had no doubt that she’d find her here. If J had gone to RECOR, she was sure that the trail would have vanished and Koschei would have been all the more dangerous. Two lone wolves were less scary than a pack. But then again, Koschei always underestimated me, J thought. And this big, bad wolf is coming for you. 

Koschei came to gloat once again. The hair on the back of J’s neck prickled and she turned on her bunk to find him watching her from the door.   
‘Leave me alone’ J muttered.   
‘Solitary confinement for such a model prisoner, never’  
‘What do you want?’   
‘To talk, something I can’t figure out, about the old days’   
‘Go on’ J rolled her eyes and turned to face him.   
‘Why did you leave when you left, what made up your mind?’ His voice was more like the old Koschei than she’d heard in years. J hadn’t expected to hear it again.   
‘It got too much for me’ J admitted.  
‘But you wanted it all, you made it’ he said. He didn’t understand.   
‘I did, and then I didn’t’ J said simply, giving him the truth.   
‘Just like that?’ He watched her closely.   
‘Just like that’ she replied, finally looking into his eyes, ‘I was tired of it’  
He broke the eye contact first and paced up and down past the door a few times, nodding his head, working through it.  
‘It was the best time of my life, running with you’ he finally said, before leaving the cell block. J sat on her bunk in silence for a while. She knew that this was probably him manipulating her. She could never rid herself of that feeling, not after everything he’s done. She didn’t know what was going to happen next. But she hoped that Yasmin was on her way. J reached up and ran her fingers through her hair. Her finger pads slid over a smooth patch on the top of her head. She withdrew her hand, it was still there, she thought relieved. She checked it once a day. More and someone might notice. 

Elsewhere. 

Yasmin and Mickey had convinced the Oswin twins to pack up their chopshop and join their travelling show. The pair agreed that the heat was on and the stakes were as high as they could get. If they stayed put, they’d likely catch a bullet each. With Petronella and Bonnie in the back of the van, their combined, essential, equipment stacked up and lining the back of the van’s floor, they left the suburbs behind.  
‘We need to steal a coach or something’ Mickey said looking back from the passenger’s seat at his crew and the twins sat on top of boxes of complex electronics and gear.   
‘Commandeer, we’re still spies, agent’ Yasmin corrected from the wheel.   
‘Are we picking up OB?’ Barkley asked, leaning in-between their chairs. Mickey looked to Yasmin to answer.   
‘No, safer to stay split up for now, we don’t know if he’s been trailed from leaving RECOR’  
‘Charming, don’t think I can shake a trail’ Graham said over their comms, Yasmin suppressed a smile as she imagined him shaking his head. Ever since he’d pulled rank so to speak and got the rest of them on side, Yasmin wondered what he’d done to make him such a legend, and why he wasn’t mentioned at the academy at all. The road ahead looked strange suddenly. She didn’t know what but there was something. Yasmin scanned the cars and told Mickey,   
‘Somethings wrong, stay alert’

In one of the cars ahead of the van, Jack Harkness drummed his steering wheel impatiently.   
‘Get outta the way’ he called out, letting the American really come out. He hated traffic. Unreasonably so. He wound his window down and reiterated his demand, adding a couple of curse words. The pile up was made from a idling SUV, blocking the lanes while the green go lights glared. ‘What are you waiting for?!’ Jack raged. He heard a revving behind him and turned to see a battered white van mount the kerb and plough down ticket meters, dustbins, and small shrubs. As the van tore down the pavement causing chaos, the SUV that was blocking traffic fishtailed around and headed towards the van. Amazed, Jack ducked back into his car and gripped the wheel. The second an opening occurred, he was gone, he had enough trouble on his plate. Info Broker wasn’t an easy life but once left the office he was his own man, he thought indignantly. He hadn’t had issues until J paid him a visit out of the blue, and since then people had been dropping like flies, something big was happening and all he wanted to do was get home and get in the bath after fielding increasingly bizarre calls all day. Someone high up at RECOR wanted to his info on their sources. He’d hung up of course, but it was troubling. And now a car fight on his way home. Brilliant. His wing mirror fell off. Jack stared at it.   
‘What the...’ nothing had hit it, he opened his car door and got out. He kneeled down, his wing mirror had a hole through it, the glass was shattered in chunks on the tarmac. Then his windscreen shattered. He heard the shot this time. People were firing from the SUV and the van as they approached each other like modern day jousters. Jack dropped to his knees and covered his head, hiding between the cars. People started to bail, leaving their car doors wide open as they fled. The ones with open road in-front of them pulled away wildly. The SUV and the van collided, with a deafening screech of metal on metal. The van trundled on, it’s front end bashed in from the debris it had flattened to get past the traffic. The SUV skidded and turned tightly to follow it. More shots rang out, Jack started to crawl forward, trying to get out of the maze of abandoned cars. A hail of bullets from a machine gun peppered the pile up and Jack watched with dismay as they impacted on a car right next to him, spiralling towards the petrol cap. Jack threw himself over the bonnet of a car to his right as the car exploded. He woke up, laying in the front garden of a house on the other side of the street. His ears were ringing and his face was charred with smoke and grime. Someone was stood over him, mouth agape, eyes wide,   
‘Blimey, you’re lucky to be alive’ they said.  
‘I feel fine’ Jack said, pushing himself seated on the grass. The road was a mass of burning cars. His car was smouldering, its tires popped and the body crunched onto the tarmac. ‘I loved that car’ he moaned. 

‘Good driving’ Mickey said as Yasmin turned the remains of their van down a tight alleyway. She hoped it didn’t dead end.   
‘This crate is trashed, we have to bail’ she said, urging the spluttering engine to make it to the end of the alley. They were jus running from one chase to the next, she needed RECOR and Koschei’s men off their backs so they could pick up J’s trail again. ‘We need to split up’ she said suddenly. Mickey looked at her confused,   
‘We just teamed up’   
‘I know but if they’re after you lot, maybe I can have some time to figure this out’ she said, feeling bad suggesting using them as bait but it was the fate of the planet at stake. Besides it’s not like with her here they would ever stop being hunted, she thought.   
‘Actually makes sense’ Barkley piped up.  
‘I don’t want to be scared anymore’ Petronella squeaked from the back.   
‘I don’t mind it actually’ Bonnie said with a wicked grin.   
‘You can’t be serious’  
‘Never knowingly be serious’  
‘Enough, Petro...’ Yaz started.  
‘Petronella’ Bonnie said for Petronella.  
‘Petronella, if you come with me, you’ll be going where J is and that’s going to be the most dangerous place you’ve ever heard of’ Yasmin explained as she fought with the van and it’s dying engine.  
‘Oh lord’   
‘Yeh sis, you stay with the squaddies, let me go with the agent’ Bonnie said confidently.   
‘Okay’ Petronella conceded glumly. Barkley clapped her on the back,   
‘I’ll protect you’ he said smiling. Petronella took a hit from her inhaler. 

They made it to the end of the alley and Yasmin cut the engine. They all piled out of the van. The RECOR agents had their arms full of the twins’s computers.   
‘Keep in contact’ Yasmin told Mickey. Bonnie took a small suitcase off one of the agents and patted him on the head.  
‘Be careful’ Petronella said, her face drawn. Bonnie smiled and hugged her twin.   
‘You're the careful one, I’m the amazing one’ she said, before, quieter ‘I love you’   
‘Love you too’ Petronella chanted back. Bonnie joined Yasmin’s side.   
‘Got everything you need?’ Yasmin asked, glancing at the single suitcase she had chosen over the masses of tech they had brought along with them.   
‘Yep’ she said patting the case, ‘more power in this case than most computer stores’ she said confidently. Yasmin nodded, quickly saluted Mickey with two fingers to her temple, and they broke apart, going opposite ways down the deserted street. Once they reached a car with an electric fob key, Bonnie opened her case, tapped a few keys on the built in keyboard within and the car unlocked.   
‘That’s scary’ Yasmin said, opening it and hopping in.  
‘I know’ Bonnie said grinning. Yasmin glanced in the rear view mirror and saw Mickey and co piling into another van further up the road. She nodded at them even though it was way too far for them to see. Good luck, she thought, as she put her foot down.   
‘I have been thinking about those geocached messages J left you’ Bonnie started, Yasmin shot a look at her, this sounded encouraging, ‘well I can probably rig the contacts to track them down, given time’ she said.   
‘That’d be great, I’m sure J found out where Koschei plans to pull this from, if we find her, we’ll find him, I’m sure of it’ she said, feeling hopeful for the first time in a while. Unlock the videos, lead straight to her. Simple, she thought.   
‘Yaz, they’ve found me’ OB said over the contacts.


	11. Graham

Yasmin and Bonnie had broken the speed limit for over an hour to reach OB’s last pinged location. He had cut the line after warning them, echoed his geotag and went dark. Yasmin hope the entire way that he was safe. Bonnie kept quiet, not making her usual quips or jokes, instead she worked on the suitcase laptop in her lap.  
‘He’s probably just hiding’ she said by way of comfort, Yasmin nodded mutely, gripping the steering wheel tighter. The geotag came from the middle of a shopping mall.   
‘Them cornering him in public is a good sign’ Yasmin said as she turned the vehicle into the huge car park that fringed the complex.   
‘Harder to take someone in public I bet’ Bonnie said, not looking up from her laptop. Yasmin pulled the handbrake and undid her seatbelt,   
‘I’m going in on foot, get behind the wheel, I’ll call you for evac’ she told Bonnie before taking off running.   
‘Good luck’ Bonnie called after her.   
The mall was busy, Yasmin thought that it must be the weekend. She slowly from a sprint to a trot when she approached the entrance. Casting her eyes downwards and trying to appear casual, incase whoever found Graham had hacked and were monitoring the cameras, Yasmin entered the mall. The crowds inside were surging. Her gun was stashed behind her back, slotted into her belt. It felt extra dangerous whenever she was armed in a public space like this. She hoped against hope that she could get Graham out without needing to draw. Bonnie patched into her ear,   
‘The ping came from right outside of a Shoezone’  
‘Give me a route?’ Yasmin asked, getting jostled by a rambunctious group of teens as they passed by her whooping.   
‘Yes your Highness’ Bonnie said in a drawl, ‘past that clothing store, right, left past the juice store in the middle of the floor, up the escalator, come back on yourself...’  
‘A bit at a time’ Yasmin complained as she weaved through the crowd. 

‘There there!’ Bonnie said, as Yasmin caught sight of the Shoezone. No sign of Graham, but she hadn’t expected to see him. She skidded to a halt and cast around her. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She caught no vibes. The place looked completely normal. Passing shoppers, vending machines, overcrowded benches. Yasmin’s contacts pulsed and a hidden message, just like J left her, opened. The video opened with Graham stood pretty much where Yasmin was right now. He wasn’t talking, covertly recording, then he started to walk. Yasmin gasped and followed him, using the moving background in the video to chart his course. It was hard going, she had to keep whipping her head around to match up the shop frontages to the video, and Graham wasn’t going slow.   
‘I’ve got software running to extrapolate his route, you’ll give yourself whiplash and you’re not being discreet’ Bonnie chided from her ear. ‘He’s probably hiding in a toilet’   
‘Don’t be daft’ Yasmin said.  
‘Told you’ Bonnie said five minutes later, after leading Yasmin to the restrooms.   
‘Which...’ Yasmin started,   
‘Men’s’ Bonnie said, trying to hide her glee.   
‘Can’t you contact him?’ Yasmin complained, already headed for a cleaning closet door. Once inside she sifted around the bottles of cleaning fluid lining the walls and found a spare uniform crumpled up. She stepped into it and realised it was too baggy.   
‘No quips’ Yasmin warned as Bonnie’s line started to broadcast again, silencing her. She pulled a short bungee cord from the shelving where it bound a bunch of mops, and used it as a belt. She pulled the matching cap on her head low and grabbed a bottle of cleaner and a rag.   
‘Let’s cleanup these suckers’ Bonnie said, unable to remain quiet. 

Yasmin slipped out the cleaning cupboard and walked directly into the Men’s restroom. She realised with a start that it was somewhere she’d never been. An odd sense of trespassing flooded her. You’re a spy, she told herself, your job is mostly trespassing. She kept her eyes on the floor. She had to look up though, she thought, to find Graham. He’d be in a stall, she realised. This was ridiculous.   
‘Knock every stall?’  
‘Bonnie.’ Yasmin growled.   
‘Yaz?’ Graham called from the stall directly next to her. Clearly he’d heard her. Thank you Bonnie.   
‘I’m here, you safe?’ Yasmin whispered into the crack of the door. It opened. Graham looked pale, worried,  
‘Can’t figure out who’s onto me, us or them, well they aren’t us anymore I guess’ he was looking over her shoulders furtively, watching out.   
‘We have to get out of here, we have a getaway’ Yasmin said, but Graham’s eyes widened and her pulled her down by the shoulders just in time for a bullet to miss her and chew up the tiled wall of the stall.   
‘This again’ Yasmin muttered, avoiding losing her balance and having to put her hands on the gross floor.   
‘They wanna kill me’ Graham said panicked.   
‘Getting used to it’ Yasmin deadpanned, she reached into the overalls, pulled her gun from her belt, turned and fired in one smooth motion. 

‘Must be Koschei’s men if they’re firing in public’ Graham said panting as they ran through the mall. The crowds were scattering madly, panic had truly set in. Yasmin was seething. She had become a spy to protect people. And these mad men were firing wildly on innocent people, no regard. Then again, they worked for someone who was planning on nuking the Earth. Hardening her heart, Yasmin turned and picked off a few careful shots at the approaching assailants in the crowd.   
‘That’s J’s woman!’ She thought she heard one shout as he pointed his rifle at her. Yasmin ducked behind a pillar as he opened fire. J’s woman. Now, really, she thought to herself, pushing off the pillar and sprinting to rejoin Graham. They reached a larger shop’s wide open door and the pair of them vanished into aisles of clothing.   
‘Straight through, past a Costa and you’re out, I’m waiting, doors open, chocks away’ Bonnie said.  
‘Replaced me already?’ Graham asked, as they ran flat out, he was lagging behind. Yasmin slowed and fell back level with him,   
‘Needed someone to find you didn’t I, nice trick using the videos like J did’ she said.   
‘Blimey, jump in my grave so quickly will ya, Bonnie is it?’ he asked, turning his contacts back on.  
‘You know exactly who I am old man’ Bonnie replied slyly.   
‘When did you figure that out then?’ Yasmin asked, hoping that he could unlock the rest of J’s archived messages. 

They hit the Costa and weaved through the tables, headed for the glass, automatic doors and the outside. As they pushed out into the open air. Bonnie beckoned them from the car ahead. Yasmin hopped neatly into the front seat next to Bonnie, and Graham climbed in the back. Before he could shut his door however, a shot rang out. A woman dressed in tactical gear was firing at them from the roof. Yasmin scooted over, climbing into and over Bonnie’s lap while she flapped her hands and pressed herself into the chair.   
‘Never knew you cared’ she quipped, as though compelled. Slipping out the open window, Yasmin pulled herself onto the car’s roof. She levelled her gun and shot a single, perfect shot. The woman crumpled and fell in a heap. Yasmin allowed herself a small celebration, a single whoop, before jumping down off the car roof. She was about to push the back door shut when she noticed Graham was very still. He was hunched over, clutching his chest, where a growing patch of darkness was staining his shirt.   
‘Graham’ Yasmin said, leaning over him. His eyes were glassy.   
‘Get in now, they’re right behind you’ Bonnie shouted. Yasmin blinked back tears and slammed the door and flung herself into the front seat as more gunshots rang out to their left. Bonnie put her foot down and the car pulled away. She couldn’t look back. He was dead on the back seat and she couldn’t look back at him. Maybe if she didn’t look. What if it were J? She got angry at the mere thought. Yasmin punched the dashboard. Hard.   
‘Don’t trigger the airbag’ Bonnie warned. She punched her own leg instead. ‘Stop, please’ Bonnie said, gripping the steering wheel and biting her lip. Breathe. Yasmin had to take her contacts out to wipe her tears, they were fogging up the visuals. When she put them back in, awkwardly as they bombed along a motorway, she noticed an alert in the corner. J’s avatar pulsed. 

Messages Available.


	12. Once Upon A Time

‘Tell me a story?’ The monotone, trance like voice of Lucy Saxon floated through the minuscule speaker holes in the door of J’s cell.  
‘I’m trying to sleep, the end’ J snapped from her bunk where she had been curled up for several hours. She found that laying perfectly still with your eyes closed was a fine substitute for sleep, when you had literally nothing to do all day other than drag yourself over to the tray of food when they deigned to slide it onto the floor.  
‘He never talks to me about the old days’ Lucy said, tracing her fingers over the glass absently, ‘he says how much he hates you but never what for, I know you wouldn’t tell me what happened, but what about just an old time, an adventure you two had?’  
J puffed harshly,  
‘We never had anything remotely resembling adventures okay’ she snapped, turning to face the stupid child, she sighed inwardly at herself for thinking that.  
‘A mission then’ Lucy persisted. J knew she was going to keep on badgering her if she didn’t oblige, and it wasn’t like she had anything better to do. Sighing, heavily, J drew her knees to her chest and settled against the cold wall of her cell.  
‘We didn’t really do missions either, we just, chose targets, really’ she started talking slowly, begrudgingly. ‘I was different then, more like him, and he was too, more like, well, me now, she said, just realising it herself.  
‘He was nice?’ Lucy asked, her eyes widening.  
‘You think I’m nice?’ J asked, her eyes hardening, ‘no, but he wasn’t so feral, he thought things through, had a moral compass’  
‘And you were like, him?’ Lucy asked, whispering the last word. J shook her head quickly,  
‘I didn’t mean it exactly like that, we were just different, it was different back then’ she explained, trying to order her thoughts. ‘I didn’t care as much and he cared more’  
‘I can’t imagine him caring about anything’ Lucy admitted.  
‘It’s the memory of that which kept me hoping...’ J said, trailing off into a pensive silence. Lucy eventually spoke,  
‘You we’re going to tell me a story’ her childlike cadence had returned.  
‘Okay, once upon a time...’

The Master and the Doctor were two of London’s most prolific and feared figures. If their sights turned on you, your interests, your allies, it wasn’t going to end well. No one knew where their nicknames came from, maybe that was the point. The Doctor was always said dripping with irony. She certainly never set a bone in her life, preferring to break them. The Master was more considerate, he’d at least put you into the recovery position after he downed you. They would hit places like a whirlwind. If they were sighted stalking towards a compound, most of the staff would down tools and beat it. The Doctor never liked that, but the Master could usually convince her to let them go, if only for their legend to grow from the tales they would tell when they got safely to their dingy watering holes. One such raid was undertaken on Demon’s Run, a workhouse that was ran by the Kovarian Syndicate. On the outside, the raid could have been mistaken for altruism. They took down a notorious operation that used their workers as slaves with little to no life outside of their work. The worker’s liberation was the last thing on the Doctor’s mind though. She wanted the safe in back office. The guards at the gate noticed the pair of them sauntering out of the fog, straight for the front door of the complex. They raised their guns and lit them up. The Master vanished, diving left into a bank of fog, but the Doctor continued to stalk forward. Another burst of gunfire chewed up the tarmac at her feet as the Doctor advanced, unfazed.  
‘Last warning, next time I pull the trigger, you’re dead’ one of the guards said, his voice as shaky as his gun. The Doctor looked through him, and carried on her approach.  
‘What do we do?’ Another guard asked him, his finger resting on the trigger of his rifle.  
‘Kill her, she’s had enough warnings’ he said, and the pair of them fired. One missed, and one hit. The Doctor was knocked back, she stayed on her feet, sliding a few paces back. She doubled over, so her hair fell down, concealing her face. She hung there, bent double, like a wounded animal for a moment. The guards exchanged glances, unable to believe they’d downed the Doctor. Then she whipped her head up and her hair flew to reveal a face that seemed to pity them.  
‘I was going to let you go’ she said, ripping her leather coat open and shrugging her bulletproof vest off, ‘until you ruined my favourite jacket’ she said, poking her finger through the bullet hole.  
Before they could fire again, the Master barrelled into the pair of them from the side. They sprawled onto the concrete in a pile and the Doctor bridged the gap between them in a furious sprint. The Master was grappling one, sitting bodily ontop of him, choking him out of consciousness as the Doctor flipped, head over heels, pushed herself off the ground with both hands and used the momentum to bring her heel down in an arc, directly into the gut of the other guard. The sound as her heel dug into his core never left the Master. The man grunted and then screamed a half choked gargle. The Doctor smirked as she landed and she knocked him out with a swift kick to the face. The Master managed to put his quarry to sleep, threw the Doctor a fleeting admonishing look, and the pair of them walked purposefully towards the front doors.  
The Master threw the Doctor another vest from his pack, which she slipped on expertly fast, then she affixed a device to the front doors, swung herself off the gantry and braced herself against a wall before detonating it. The doors flew off and the pair of them were inside. 

‘If you were so different why did he go along with you like that?’ Lucy asked suddenly.  
‘He thought if he was around he could temper me’ J admitted, they had long since swapped places but she was still grateful that he tried. She felt shame that she didn’t try so hard with him. Then again, the Doctor never wanted to end the entire world, just punish a few lowlifes. The Doctor never turned people into, that, she thought, glancing at Lucy, her fair face marred with fresh bruises, barely concealed by makeup, like poppies under a light snow flurry.  
‘What happened next?’  
‘We took the safe, the end’ J said, suddenly tiring of this little exchange. Lucy sagged, literally sitting down outside the cell in a heap. J watched her from under a frown,  
‘What’s the matter?’ She asked, then regretted it, what wasn't the matter, she was as much a prisoner of Koschei as she was.  
‘I just wanted to, I don’t know, forget, but now knowing he was good, or at least not so bad, that doesn’t help at all’ she was crying. J didn’t move, she watched the tears fall, her face contorting. Didn’t seem to be acting. Glancing up at the cameras in the hall and above her door, she noticed that their lights were off. They weren’t being watched.  
‘Lucy, did you turn the cameras off...?’ J breathed. Lucy looked up at her, red rimmed eyes, she nodded.  
‘How?’  
‘Cameras are easy to turn off, just go into the security room and pull a couple of wires out’ she said, as though explaining how to make a cup of tea.  
‘Do you do that often?’ J asked.  
‘Never before’  
‘Then why did you do it now?’  
‘I just wanted a break from him’  
‘How will he act when he finds out?’ J asked, staring at the dead camera lenses.  
‘He won’t, he’s not here this week’ she said, tapping on her thigh with her fingertips.  
‘He’s not here, where is he?’ J urged.  
‘He’s going to kill your woman’


	13. Old Lessons

'Right, lets take it from the top' J said from the first of the archived videos that had opened for Yasmin upon Graham's death. Yasmin blinked, startled, the words sending her hurtling back to her days at the academy. 

'Right ladies lets take it from the top' called the shrill voice of their practical instructor. She was prim, gaunt, wiry, and utterly ruthless. Yasmin still wasn't used to being called ladies. She looked around the room, which looked to all appearances to be a standard gym-hall, the kind you'd see at any school. But this wasn't any old school. Their instructor was Miss Vanessa Strachen and she treated her exercises and maze runs as seriously as a field mission, every-time. Even Monday mornings first thing. Yasmin was dressed, like the rest of the girls, in a tactical, clinging, sports top, shorts, and trainers. It reminded her of high school PE uniform really, except every girl here could kill you with just their legs, if they had to. And they all had a handgun in a holster strapped round their waists. Despite herself, Yasmin couldn't help the unfamiliar stirrings that these classes always awoke in her. Seeing so many extremely fit girls in such tight clothing, it was a true test of her spy composure. Although, she mused, Mrs Hartigan, their mood trainer probably wasn't attracted to girls, so what would she know. Yasmin felt herself blush inwardly at the thought. If her sister knew that she were...gay, say it, she thought. Jenny Flint stretched theatrically a couple of people down from Yasmin and she had to avert her eyes from her form as she did so. If she caught her looking, Jenny had a tendency to flirt. Yasmin couldn't handle that in Miss Strachen's class. The last time Jenny had sidled up to Yasmin and came rather too close, Miss Strachen had shouted so sharply that Yasmin wanted to disappear into the vinyl flooring. They were at spy school but they were still girls after all. 

'Today's challenge is a duo maze run, pair up, Tyler and Potts, Waterfield and Foreman, Flint and Khan...' Yasmin's stomach flipped. Of course. Jenny turned on her heels and smiled sweetly at Yasmin, who really wished she had mastered the disappearing into the floor technique now.   
'You think you can take your eyes off me long enough to run the maze?' Jenny teased when they were stood at the entrance to the challenge chamber. Yasmin didn't even try to speak, her mouth was dry and Jenny never listened anyway. It was probably all just a massive joke, the fact that Yasmin actually was attracted to her was just the universe laughing. Flint would probably laugh, push her away, turn those dark eyes hard and shun her. Yasmin didn't know what to do so she focused on the maze run ahead. Miss Strachen wouldn't go kindly on her because she was distracted by her team mate's, surely too small, uniform, or the way she switched her hips, or the way she would stand and shift her weight. Come on Yasmin, she thought to herself, focus. The start bell tined and they took off running. 

Jenny was faster off the mark, surging ahead into the maze.   
‘Hey it’s a duo run’ Yasmin called after her.  
‘Doesn't mean I’m gonna letcha win’ she replied over her shoulder, her twee cockney accent slipping out.   
Yasmin watched her run for a moment too long then pushed off the balls of her feet and followed. The walls ahead were studded with tiny nozzles, most fake, but some were primed with sleeping darts. The floor of the corridor was littered with tiny, nearly imperceptible pressure plates. Jenny ran with her head down, scanning the floor for safe spots. Yasmin mirrored her footsteps, unsure of exactly how to tell where the plates were. Strachen had told them but Yasmin just couldn’t retain it, she could mentally track Jenny’s steps perfectly however. If you can’t do, adapt, granny Umbreen always said when Yasmin struggled with something. Once they cleared the wall of sleeping darts, the pair of them hopped out into a wide, blank room. Jenny was snapping her eyes left and right, standing completely still, when Yasmin caught up.   
‘Can’t see a thing’ Yasmin said, peering into the darkness of the next room. Her wrist grazed Jenny’s thigh and she pulled it back with a tiny gasp. Jenny didn't react, she was engrossed in the puzzle of the empty room. They stood next to each other in the quiet.   
‘Maybe it’s just an empty room’ Yasmin offered, Jenny tutted,  
‘Why would there even be one in a maze run?’ She rolled her eyes.  
‘As a test, to see if you’d notice, if you can trust your own eyes’ Yasmin said, convincing herself. There really was nothing in the room. She took a step forward but Jenny reached out and grabbed her arm. Yasmin stiffened and looked at her.   
‘I’m not failing because you couldn’t wait a moment’ Jenny growled, tightening her grip on Yasmin’s wrist.   
Twisting her arm out of Flint’s grip, Yasmin gestured at the floor,  
‘Are there any pressure plates?’ She asked. Jenny shook her head. ‘Anywhere?’ Yasmin pressed, waving her arms at the whole room. Jenny shook her head. ‘Fine, then let’s go’ Yasmin said, stepping off the threshold and into the room. The entire way across she prayed that she was right, it would be so embarrassing to be hoisted up into a net or darted now. Jenny watched until she reached halfway before following. 

‘Psychology has no place in a maze run’ she muttered.   
‘I mean, that’s just completely wrong’ Yasmin said over her shoulder. The moment she reached the very centre of the room, lights blazed from above and flooded the room. The previously hidden walls were closing in. Fast. Jenny started to sprint before Yasmin even fully registered the change in light. Flint barged past Yasmin and nearly knocked her off her feet, then she grasped her hand and pulled her along after her. Jenny ran and Yasmin was yanked along in more of a controlled fall, and the pair of them made it to the doorway, where they tumbled into an extremely narrow corridor.   
‘Thanks’ Yasmin panted.  
‘It’s a duo run like you said, couldn’t let you gimme a fail’ Jenny said, breathing out sharply, trying to centre herself.   
‘You’re so different when we’re doing practicals’ Yasmin said, without thinking.  
‘Because this is my entire life’ Jenny said, not unkindly. ‘I wanna be the best I can be’   
‘So how you are other times, is that not real?’ Yasmin said, aware that she was speaking vaguely, messily. Jenny turned to face her, a little closer than strictly comfortable due to the tight corridor they were crammed into. Yasmin had never seen her up close, her face was so smooth and ethereally pale, specially in the harsh white lights of the maze.  
‘What are you getting at?’ She asked plainly. Yasmin stammered, half shrugged, and shook her head instead,   
‘Nothing, I just noticed, you’re...’ was she really going to say it, she thought frantically, ‘flirty with me’ she said it. Jenny’s face changed, broke into a wide grin actually.  
‘Oh, sorry if it makes you uncomfortable’ she said, her eyes glancing down at Yasmin’s mouth. Did Jenny Flint just look at my mouth, Yasmin thought wildly.   
‘No, no, I’m not, it’s not like that, I just, I don’t know’ Yasmin admitted, this conversation was more exhausting than any training module.   
‘Relax Khan’ Jenny said, tapping her on the end of the nose with her forefinger, ‘you can confess your undying lust for me once we’re out of the maze’ she said, before turning and shimmying along the corridor. Yasmin was left to slightly breathlessly follow her. That was, interesting, she thought. Jenny had couched it in jokes so Yasmin didn’t feel too awkward, but even so, even broaching the subject with her had taken a lot out Yasmin. 

The rest of the course was more or less an athletics test, Yasmin didn’t have any trouble, and Jenny certainly didn’t. They scampered across monkey bars and scaled sheer walls. She felt a sudden unreality moment of being on Ninja Warrior watching Jenny climb up a rope net suspended over water. There was a moving target range that mandated they drew their guns and hit the targets while on a long travelator that constantly shifted their footing. Jenny was a good shot, but Yasmin was better, hitting twice as many as she managed to. Finally they squeezed through a maze of foam pillars packed tightly together and found themselves in what surely would be the last corridor, Yasmin hoped. Jenny turned to Yasmin and pushed her against the wall. Yasmin wheeled her arms to try and keep her balance but Jenny stepped forward and pushed her thigh between her legs, parting them and pushing her bodily against the wall.   
‘What are you...’ Yasmin started but Jenny kissed her, muffling her words. It was fast, and kind of numb to start with, then Yasmin moved her lips and fell into the sensation. Jenny was holding her shoulders, her leg was pressing between Yasmin’s, as she kissed her softly. When she broke it off, and leaned back a fraction, she raised her eyebrows,  
‘Make up for the flirting?’ She asked with a spreading smile to a bemused, frozen still Yasmin. ‘Let’s finish this maze before old Vanessa fails us’ she said, stepping away from Yasmin. She peeled herself off the wall and followed behind Jenny, stunned. They exited the maze and entered into another unassuming gym hall where Miss Strachen waited with her tablet.   
‘Worst time of the class’ she declared curtly, ‘what were you two doing in there?’   
Yasmin blushed. Jenny sashayed her way other to the teacher,   
‘Intelligence gathering’ she said, winking at Yasmin who blushed harder.

‘Miss Flint, this is a serious training exercise, if you plan to-‘ Miss Strachen started to shout, but doors burst open interrupting her. The room was a flurry of activity suddenly. From two different doorways, grey suited men carrying rifles stormed into the room. Yasmin reached for her gun but found only an empty holster. Her eyes flew open wide and she patted uselessly at the empty space. One of the interlopers shoved Miss Strachen down to her knees and one grabbed Jenny by the shoulder. She twisted out of his grip and brought up two pistols, one Yasmin recognised as her own. The slight scuff below the aim sight on the barrel was her tell, every academy girl had their own tell that they marked their weapon with. Yasmin looked at Jenny confused, wondering how she didn’t feel the weight difference when Jenny lifted her gun. The kiss. She’d kissed her, to disarm her. What was going on. Jenny stood in a standoff with the ten or so men, for a moment, then she turned her gaze to Yasmin.   
‘Sorry lover’ she said, training her own gun on Yasmin. Her world titled slightly. The Academy was under attack? Miss Strachen was tapping on her tablet, trying to hack the security? Jenny was aiming her own gun at her, in league with the attackers? All the possibilities of the situation ran through Yasmin’s head in a moment and she decided, moving on instinct. She threw herself back into the maze and took off running. The guards piled in after. She lost them in the foam pole maze, secreted herself up a corner and waited from them all to pass by. Nine did. One had failed to take the bait. Yasmin cursed and crept through the maze back to the start, listening out for the rest of them. The long corridor where Jenny had kissed her, lifted her gun, she corrected herself testily, was empty. She could see the room where she had just came from, Miss Strachen was still under guard, that’s where the last one was then. Yasmin didn’t know quite what to do, if the academy was under attack, there would be chaos, even if she made it out of this complex, she’d have to be very careful. The other students would be on edge, she might get shot by friend as easily as foe. Like Jenny, she thought. Friend turned foe in a moment. Her blood ran hot and she wanted to beat that little bitch for what she did to her. That was her first kiss? A betrayal to get her gun. Pushing this aside for the moment, Yasmin crept up to the room and undid her trainers silently, crouched behind the doorway. She gripped the laces and went for it. She stormed the room and sent her right trainer flying at the man who was standing over her teacher. It struck him in the chest and he span wildly, firing his gun as he moved. Yasmin closed the gap between them with a slide, and she struck her foot out against his shin. He hit the deck and Yasmin closed her arm round his windpipe. Miss Strachen retrieved his fallen gun and trained it on him while Yasmin choked him out. When the man went limp, she disentangled herself and stood up to face her teacher. 

‘What do we do mam?’ She asked breathlessly. Miss Strachen turned her head slightly, quizzically,  
‘Depends, what did you learn?’ She asked calmly. Yasmin stared at her.   
‘The academy is under attack we have to evacuate the girls’ she started but Strachen raised her hand to silence her,   
‘What did you learn today Miss Khan?’ Her eyes glancing over her shoulder. Yasmin turned and saw Jenny standing there, all the menace gone, she was smiling apologetically, holding Yasmin’s gun out, so the handle was being offered. Yasmin swallowed hard and turned to face her teacher.   
‘Not to get distracted’ she admitted, feeling a deep shame for failing a test, and a sense of anger, a spark of hot wild irritation, that her attraction had been used against her.   
‘Not to get distracted by girls’ Strachen added, making Yasmin blush and feel the twist in her stomach even more keenly. ‘Isn’t that right Miss Flint?’ She asked, her slight Scottish accent coming through suddenly.   
‘Yes mam, you had to drill that into me’ she said, her smile never faltering. Yasmin understood. This was a honeypot test, and she’d failed. She hung her head and sighed.   
‘What’s wrong Miss Khan?’ Strachen asked.  
‘I failed the test, I’m out of the academy’ she admitted glumly.   
‘Very few resist the honey trap, the test is to measure your resiliency and reaction time when the trap is sprung, and you managed to escape, and rescue a hostage’ Yasmin looked up, letting herself smile, slightly, before nodding and taking her gun from Flint, she gave her a sultry wink. Not knowing quite what to do with that, Yasmin nodded to her teacher.   
‘Thanks Miss’ 

‘Right let’s take it from the top’ J said on a tiny screen projected onto Yasmin’s contact lenses, ‘if this archive unlocks, you need to find me immediately, I’m going to let myself be captured, Koschei wouldn't miss the chance to hold me as prisoner, and I need you to break me out’ Yasmin listened, her heart beating so fast she thought it would jump out of throat. ‘Once he has me, he’ll take me where we need to go, his base, I will be broadcasting my location for a few seconds every day, you need to be actively scanning for my bio signature the moment I do so to find me, when you do, the second you come within two hundred metres, a fail safe I spliced into the base’s security will trigger and the place will shut down. In the chaos I’ll be able to get out, and you need to get in. We’ll find each other I’m sure, you just need to reach me, I’ll try to signal at 6pm daily but maybe my body clock will deviate a little, depends how long I’m in jail for’ she was talking to herself again, like Yasmin loved, but this was madness. She was willingly being a prisoner to that madman. Yasmin feared what state she’d be in when she found her again. Checking her watch, 5:49pm.   
‘Bonnie, pull over, we have to track for a signal right now’ she said. Bonnie nodded and turned the wheel, mounting the hard shoulder. The car slowed to a halt. Yasmin could hardly breathe, they were going to do it, they were going to find J and stop Koschei. Then the car was smashed into and everything went black.


	14. One Hope

Yasmin and Bonnie were both jerked forward from the momentum of whatever hit the back of their car. Twisting herself so that she hit the windscreen with her palms straight out, she braced against the glass. Bonnie wasn’t so quick with her reflexes, she hit the steering wheel square with her chest. Yasmin operated an unassuming ring on her finger with her contacts, pointing at it and hacking the sensor module. It let out a peel and the glass shattered beneath her fingers. There was a revving noise building up and she knew that they were going to be rammed again. She reached over and hauled Bonnie over the wheel, so she could scramble out onto the bonnet. With her out, complaining about the cuts her palms were sustaining from the remnants of the windscreen, Yasmin followed. The pair were out when the car was hit again. They tumbled off the bonnet from the impact and fell heavily onto the concrete. Yasmin was up on her feet in a flash, pulling Bonnie towards the railing that divided the hard shoulder from the copses and thin tree lines that hemmed the motorway in. She didn’t need to look to know that an all black SUV was the vehicle responsible for their harassment.  
‘I need my suitcase laptop’ Bonnie squealed as they mounted the railing. Yasmin calculated the risks and shook her head,  
‘Way too dangerous, we have to go now’ she said, pushing Bonnie off the railing and hopping off herself. They slid down a slight ravine, putting some much needed distance between the car and them.  
‘OB’ Yasmin called, operating her contact lenses then stopped dead, ‘Petronella, come in’ she said instead, trying not to think of OB back in the car.  
‘Receiving, what’s wrong, is my sister okay?’ Petronella asked frantically.  
‘I’m fine for now’ Bonnie yelled.  
‘For now?’ Petronella worried,  
‘Osgood, focus, we need you to remote detonate Bonnie’s tech, it’s compromised’ Yasmin said. Petronella didn’t reposed but her keys started to clack and not long after, about the time Yasmin and Bonnie reached the bottom of the embankment, there was a small explosion above them. Followed by a bigger one.  
‘That’s the car gone, hope it took that SUV with it’ Bonnie said, adjusting her thick glasses as she looked up at the rising smoke. Yasmin couldn’t bare to look, OB was back there. Christ, 

‘Koschei wouldn’t stand a chance’ J said, exuding confidence she did not feel. Lucy looked at her sadly.  
Still this was good, J thought, with Master gone, it would be possible, however unlikely, for her to escape. If she could only convince Lucy to let her out. It struck her that she would have to use the woman like Koschei had. Yasmin was taking too long to reach her, the base’s security hadn’t gone into lockdown yet, and her signal hadn’t been received. Hating herself for it, J decided to manipulate Lucy.  
‘How long has it been since her was nice to you?’ She asked, going for the jugular. Lucy blinked slowly, the tiniest crease of her brow betrayed to J that it was the right track to try to go down.  
‘Master is always kind’ she said, like a reflex, she furtively glanced at the security room up the hall.  
‘They aren’t listening, you said, you turned the cameras off remember, so, when was the last time anyone hugged you?’ J asked, adopting her softest voice.  
‘A fair while I guess’ Lucy said, looking down at her beautiful dress.  
‘How long since you felt wanted, not for a purpose, but just for you?’ J urged. Lucy’s face turned pained.  
‘He was so sweet at the start, so gentle’ she said the last word like it hurt.  
‘He’s not been either of those for years has he, how much does he hurt you, how much does he degrade you?’ J’s voice was hardening as she stood, filling the glass door, pressing her hands against the glass.  
‘He’s a bad man’ Lucy admitted, looking down at her feet.  
‘Don’t you want him to pay for what he’s done to you?’ J whispered through the speaker holes.  
Lucy nodded silently, her eyes wide.  
‘Open the door’ J said, not asked. Lucy’s hand jerked, actually moved towards the keypad, before she stopped it and trembled.  
‘He would kill me and my family too, my little sister...’  
‘I’ll kill him first’ J said, meaning it. Lucy locked eyes with her.  
‘You’d actually do it?’ She asked.  
‘In a heartbeat’ J said resolutely. 

Yasmin’s cheek was gouged by a sharp branch as they pushed their way through the untended brush. Blood ran from the cut, down her cheek. Her and Bonnie trudged through the wild until they found concrete. A short path that faded into the undergrowth led them to a fenced electrical station.  
‘We could shelter here’ Yasmin offered, and Bonnie nodded desperately, she was worn out. Night had fallen. Yasmin decided not to risk any further communication with Petronella and the rest of their team, for now at least. They scaled the fence, Bonnie made sure the station was safe to rest near by poking around the interior with unexpectedly great lock picking skills and joined Yasmin who was sat with her back to the fence. Their gathered gear consisted of nothing to made even a passable bed out of, hell they didn’t even have a blanket to speak of.  
‘Ever roughed it?’ Yasmin asked.  
‘Slept on Nina Sarple’s floor one night’ Bonnie said glumly.  
‘Well imagine that but much colder’  
‘I doubt it, Nina was one frigid...’ Bonnie stopped talking with a start and huffed exaggeratedly.  
‘You can talk about your exes, I don’t mind’ Yasmin said, ‘might be nice to chat, pretend everything is normal for a moment’  
Bonnie shrugged and fell silent, her cheeks red. Fine, Yasmin thought, peace and quiet worked too. About an hour later, just as Yasmin was starting to doze, Bonnie spoke.  
‘It just occurred to me that if we fail, Nina Sarple is gonna die’  
‘Everyone is’  
‘I know, but just, someone I haven’t seen for years, haven’t even thought about, she will die, screaming, confused, innocent, all because of one man’  
Yasmin scooted over and patted Bonnie’s shoulder,  
‘He isn’t going to win, J has a plan, and come tomorrow afternoon, we can go find her’ Yasmin had her contacts set scanning for her signal constantly. ‘It’ll take all of us, you, me, your sister, Mickey, Barkley...’ 

The pneumatic hiss of her jail cell door opening was like a heavenly chorus to J’s ears. Lucy stepped back from the keypad and bit her lip.  
‘So what, you going to kill me?’ Lucy asked, clearly unsure of what she’d just done. J stepped forward, and wrapped her arms around Lucy’s shoulders. She hugged her gently, while Lucy stood stunned. After a few moments she hugged back and started to cry. Her shoulders rising and falling in great sobs. J held her and let her get it all out. If she had helped to make the Master, she had a hand in this woman’s breaking. Lucy’s sobs turned to manic laughter and J pushed her away in shock. Lucy staggered back and bent double, laughing.  
‘She believed me, SHE BELIEVED ME’ she screamed, echoing doing the cell block. A slow clapping around out from the end of the corridor.  
‘Well done wife’ Koschei said. J ran. This is bad, she thought as she ran. This is really bad. If she had just stayed in her cell, she could have waited until Yasmin came. Slipped out in the confusion. Reached Archangel control. End this. But now, she ways running through a rat maze, deep in enemy territory, for a madman’s sport. She cursed herself for taking the bait. Of course Lucy was only there to play with her. Her manic face while she laughed at her was burned into J’s vision as she ran through the dim cell block.  
‘Where are you even going to hide?’ Koschei called after her mockingly. J had one hope. Her Yasmin. She reached up and pressed the smooth spot on her scalp. 

‘Oh my god’ Yasmin said,  
‘What?’ Bonnie asked with a start, peering out at the woods around them.  
‘J’s signal is live, right now’  
‘Trace it!’  
‘I am, sending it to Petronella, oh my...’ Yasmin trailed off. She felt numb, she felt hope, she felt pride and love and joy and fear, all mixed and coalescing into a dull throbbing ache in her stomach.  
‘Triangulating’ Petronella said over comms.  
‘Hold on director we’re coming for you, woohoo!’ She heard Barkley howl in the background before Mickey hushed him. Yasmin held her breath, watching the map ping up with locations, the search was reeling off before her eyes. 

J kept her finger pressed on her skull, it hurt, but she had to hope that Yasmin was catching it. She ducked into a stairwell and climbed with one hand. 

‘Well?’ Bonnie screeched.  
‘Still working on it’ Petronella said.

Rounding a corner, J heard the crack of a gunshot, felt the displaced air, and the impact of plaster shower her right side.  
‘Give me a break’ she pleaded with the universe, keeping her finger dug onto the chip she had hidden in her scalp. It was running with blood now. 

Yasmin’s fingernails were digging into her palms as she chewed her lip watching the process to find J work. It felt achingly slow, who knows when the signal was going to fade. Also this was very much not 6pm, or even remotely close. So J was in trouble.  
‘Hold on baby, I’m so close’ she said aloud. 

More stairs, J was winded and keeping her balance while having one hand glued to her scalp was tricky. Dodging bullets was trickier.  
‘Call the dogs off, you don’t want an underling to actually kill me do you?’ She called over her shoulder, hoping a Koschei was listening, of course he was. The bullets didn’t stop. The walls behind her were being beaten up with tiny impact craters. She took the stairs three at a time, desperate. 

‘Got her’ Petronella said as the screen projected onto Yasmin’s eyes displayed a building complex. A definite, tangible place. That blinking light was J. That tiny, pulsing blue blip was her J.

A bullet grazed J’s calf and she lost her footing on the cruel concrete stairs. Her hand withdrew from her head, to break her fall. 

The blue blip faded before Yasmin’s eyes.


	15. Storming The Castle

J managed to avoid breaking her face on the stairs by bracing her fall with her hands. They burnt from the impact but at least it wasn’t fatal. She pushed herself back to her feet, and felt a black pain spreading up her leg. She risked a glance, flesh wound. And she was off. She had a rough mental map of the complex from her scouting of it before she allowed herself to be captured and she hoped it was accurate enough to carry her to the office levels that seemed to double as a legitimate front facing business. Only Koschei would risk having a building full of general public employees on-top of an illegal prison. Confused chatter below drove J up the stairs. Her leg was starting to go numb but she carried on pushing it. She’d rest when she was hidden away, she thought. Lucy’s contorted, harpy face flashed before her eyes. She was still his victim, but still. J hoped that her signal had been caught. If it had, and Yasmin was on her way, a whole new fresh batch of worries would unlock, but let’s deal with these first, she thought. Finally she hauled herself up the last flight of stairs by the handrail and she swept through the landing door into a nondescript office room. She ran, ignoring the flare of pain from her leg, down the centre of the room, stepped up onto an office chair which skidded against its brakes and she pushed up a foam ceiling tile, lifted herself up with the grace of a gymnast, and replaced the foam tile in one smooth motion. The office chair stopped spinning as Koschei’s men swarmed into the office and filed down the aisles of desks and chairs searching for her. J held her breath, awkwardly positioning her weight onto the struts and not the foam tiles. 

‘Left here’ Bonnie said, as Yasmin drove. They swung their newly acquired car into a long, low garage installation nestled at the base of a tower block. ‘Thirteenth garage on the left’ she added. Yasmin pulled the brake abruptly and the car shunted to a stop outside the garage that Bonnie had indicated. They disembarked and Bonnie ran over to the door, waved her hand at seemingly nothing, and the shutter rose. Once it cleared a gap of about 4 feet, the door stopped. Bonnie crouched down and ducked under the door. Yasmin followed suit and found herself in a treasure trove. A fully stocked armoury. The lights flickered on throwing gun barrel shadows against the three walls.   
‘I see why you left the shutter down’ Yasmin said with an appreciative whistle.   
‘Sis doesn’t approve, but look who turned out to be right’ Bonnie said, stroking a rifle in a rack.   
‘How long till everyone’s arrives?’ Yasmin asked, she hadn’t really stopped for breath since they tracked down J last night.   
‘Around 6:44’ she said, Yasmin appreciated her exactitude. They weren’t far from the compound now. They could reach and storm it by 8am. That would make it about 8 hours after J’s signal. It was a piss poor response time in an emergency, Yasmin thought, but it was the best she could do. J better be okay. They had too much to do together. Blinking back sudden tears, Yasmin reached out for one of the gun racks.   
‘Anything off limits?’ She asked.   
‘Can’t be the woman who shorted the Save The World Squad can I?’ Bonnie quipped, ‘just make sure I get out alive’  
Yasmin looked away, and grabbed a chunky, mean looking pair of pistols. She thumbed the hammers and tested the grips. Bonnie pulled on a Kevlar base layer and flung one to Yasmin. 

‘It’s like Aladdin’s Cave’ Mickey said, awed, as he ducked into the garage after their second unit finally reached the rendezvous. ‘Is that a real spacesuit?’   
‘Yes and no, you can’t borrow it’ Bonnie snapped, clearly uncomfortable, with so many strangers in her personal space. Barkley was next in, Bonnie hushed him before he even spoke. Petronella weaved through the guns and hugged her sister with a perfunctory embrace, before looking disapprovingly at the guns.   
‘I still disapprove’  
‘How, they’re literally going to save the world’   
‘If the police found this, our business is over’   
‘If the police found your mobile phone our business would be over Petronella’  
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Outraged now.   
‘Well your home screen is classified material for starters, and then there’s all the texts to a certain Royal...’  
‘Shut up’ Petronella squeaked looking round at her comrades, cheeks red.   
‘Save the sisterly bonding for later, suit up all of you’ Yasmin ordered as she fastened the twin holsters to her belt and slotted the pistols snuggly in them. 

J was starting to cramp. Her leg was burning. She had dripped blood onto the foam ceiling and had to hope that it wasn’t showing through. There had been no movement on the floor above or below her for hours, but she couldn’t risk detection in the state she was in. It must be the weekend. Losing time didn’t usually happen to her, but the Master hadn’t given her an easy stint in prison the past...how long, she couldn’t remember. All she knew was that she was going to snog Yasmin’s face off when she saw her again. She had thought about the lines of her face. The curve of her nose. The sparkle of her eyes. The swoop of her brows. Her delicate chin. The lines of her neck. The warmth of her chest. She winced. J didn’t like thinking of the rest of Yasmin. Because, having retconned that night, she didn’t know they’d been together. It made J feel strange, wrong, to remember it when she didn’t. I will have to tell her, confess, she thought. Let’s get out of this alive first though. 

Yasmin and her little contingent of ex RECOR agents and two twin information brokers waited, crammed into a white van, parked just beyond the range of J’s lockdown procedure of Koschei’s complex.   
‘The second we start driving, there’s no backing out, the building goes into lockdown and we have to punch through until we find her’ Yasmin told the group.   
‘What then boss?’ Barkley asked.   
‘Then, J will tell us what to do’ she knew it sounded flat but that was the plan. J was the one who knew what to do, Yasmin had only ever been the rescue mission. She hoped that she lived up to it. If J didn’t make it, not only would Yasmin’s world end, but everyone else’s. 

J reached down gingerly and tried to hike her trousers up, to inspect her calf wound. Her back was aching, her arms were burning from holding herself in the same position for hours, and now her leg was getting to an intolerable pain level. She couldn’t manoeuvre herself to check it and pulling at the trouser was only applying more pressure to the wound. Letting out the tiniest, exhausted pant of anger, she gave up and closed her eyes. The moment she did, the building exploded with the blessed noise of every siren blaring at once. The light below winked off and green emergency lights kicked in. All over the building doors deadlocked and shutters slammed down. J smiled in the darkness and bucked, bringing her heels down to break the foam tiles beneath her that she had treated as tenderly as eggshells for so long. She fell down and landed heavily on a desk, keeping her leg elevated so as not to knock it. Rolling off, and putting all her weight on it she cried out but pushed on. This was it, Yasmin was here. She’d been found. Agent Khan, she thought admirably. 

Agent Khan was speeding towards the building with her entourage clinging on to their seats.   
‘The place is in lockdown all right’ Petronella reported.   
Yasmin twisted the wheel and fishtailed the van over the pavement and plowed through a guard rail. 

J pushed open some office double doors at speed and headed for reception. She knew what she’d do. Reach the front desk. Access CCTV, find Yasmin, go to her, then the pair of them could end this. If she encountered anyone along the way, God help them, leg or not. 

The building filled the windscreen as Yasmin revved the engine and drove straight towards the nearest wall to ceiling window on the ground floor. It was Sunday so the place was seemingly deserted. The van turned the glass into a million pieces and skidded across the polished floor of reception with a cacophony of noise. The wail of alarms was apparent from within the car.   
‘Everyone out, weapons drawn, check targets before firing, don’t shoot J, spread out, find her’ Yasmin ordered before pulling her door open and jumping out. 

J refused to stop, she ran while her leg complained with red, icy hot tendrils up her thigh. She vaulted down stairs and pelted down corridors. She had heard a faint smash and knew that was Yasmin. The cavalry had arrived. At the far end of the corridor she was limping down, two guards backed into view, animatedly arguing about the alarms. They caught sight of her and stopped dead. J felt her shoulders sag. They raised their guns and fired. 

‘Did you hear that?’ Bonnie asked amid the overlapping bray of alarms.   
‘Specify’ Mickey ordered.   
‘Gunfire, two floors up’   
Yasmin took off for the stairwell without waiting. 

J hit the deck and rolled, pulling herself into a doorway and out of their scopes, for now. She hauled herself across the floor of the new room and managed to heave herself up onto a cabinet. When they swept into the room, if they scanned from left to right, she had a forty percent chance of disarming them. If they looked right to left? Well fuck the odds, she thought, breathlessly. She couldn’t hear their footsteps over the alarms but she imagined them. They’d be at the door in a few moments. Tensing up, J waited, and visualised her attack.

Yasmin burst into the corridor as the two guards reached the room J was in. She undid her holsters, drew both pistols level and fired two precise, silenced shots. The bullets found their marks and sent the two men to their deaths. 

The time had passed, J thought, they were playing with her, maybe even they were about to hurl a smoke grenade in or something. Something wasn’t right, then the door creaked open and a shadow moved across the threshold. J readied herself and lunged as the person entered the room, looking left to right, thankfully. 

Yasmin was barely through the door when someone grabbed her arm. They twisted roughly, sending pain flaring up to her elbow. She dropped one of her pistols, but managed to twist and angle her second gun at the person. She found their eyes before she fired and found them familiar. Even in the drowning green tinge of the emergency lighting, they were beautiful.

‘J?’


	16. Reunion

‘Hey Yasmin’ J said softly, relief flooding through her. She loosened her grip on Yasmin’s arm letting her turn around to face her. J shimmied off the cabinet and tried to stand but her leg flared with pain and she stumbled. Yasmin caught her and pulled her into a tight hug. J buried her head in the nape of Yasmin’s neck and gave herself this moment. She closed her eyes as they embraced. She had found her.  
‘Your leg, are you okay, did he do that?’ Yasmin asked, pulling back and searching her face.   
‘Not directly, but I don’t wanna talk about him for a second’ J said, cupping Yasmin’s face and brining her closer.   
‘We don’t have time’ Yasmin complained weakly, J raised her eyebrow  
‘Making it an order would kill the romance’ she teased. Yasmin crumbled at the sight of J’s slight smile.  
‘I missed you so much’ she said as she leaned in to kiss her. 

‘Yasmin’s heart rate is spiking, she must be in trouble’ Bonnie said while she lead the group through the corridors of the building. 

Their kiss evolved into making out quickly, the pair clinging onto each other in the siren wailing, green lit hue of enemy territory. The door swung open and Bonnie swept in with her gun trained on the pair of them.  
‘Get off her or I shoot!’ She threatened. J and Yasmin broke apart and Bonnie blushed, dropped her gun, and nearly concussed herself with a salute.  
‘Mam, I’m sorry I didn’t know it was you’ she pleaded.  
‘At ease, you’re in my good books for bringing her to me’ J said warmly, with her arms around Yasmin’s neck. More people were watching from the door she noticed. RECOR agents.   
‘Gotta address the troops’ she said to Yasmin who nodded knowingly, and they disentangled from each other. 

‘Thanks for the rescue, you will all get pardons for defying RECOR and commissions, still in charge of this little band Mr Smith?’   
‘Yes mam, I’m sure there are more loyal to you but these are the few I could recruit in time’ Mickey explained but J waved her hand, ‘Stewart is a good director, if we don’t make it, RECOR will be in safe hands’  
‘Hey, enough of that talk’ Yasmin chided, she hadn’t come all this way to lose her J now.   
‘Mickey make two fireteams, take the north and south stairs, fight you way up, we have to reach the top floor that’s where the Master has the equipment we need to destroy’   
‘What about you director?’ Barkley asked.  
‘Me and Miss Khan will be right behind you’ she said, flashing a glance over her shoulder. Yasmin felt tingles in her stomach, she had her back, they were together again. ‘Move out’ 

The two groups departed leaving Yasmin and J alone.   
‘I’d love to really take our time but we don’t have any’ J said, tracing her fingers up Yasmin’s arms, ‘we have to stop him, this lockdown will have forced his hand, Archangel is activating’ the words clanged like doom chimes in Yasmin’s head. The end of the world.   
‘I love you’ Yasmin said without thinking, she wanted to say it, she might not get another chance.  
‘I love you too’ J said back, perfectly, no hesitation, no pretence. 

Yasmin wrapped J’s leg in gauze and bandages from her medipack and injected her with a painkiller for good measure. J tested her leg and nodded,  
‘Good, gonna need to do a lot of running’ she said. Sporadic gunfire above them sounded out. ‘Fireteams are making progress’ she said to herself. Yasmin touched J’s face,   
‘Let’s go make him pay’

J lead Yasmin to a small service lift that was secreted behind a panel in reception.   
‘How did you know all this was here?’ Yasmin asked as they ducked inside the elevator.   
‘I’m a spy babe’ J said simply, jabbing the top floor button.   
‘OB, Graham, he’s dead’   
‘Oh, he finally bought it then, shame, he was a good man’ J said, to Yasmin it sounded like platitudes. She figured that dead colleagues were part of the job. J must have lost a lot of them. She wondered if she’d ever get so used to it. If the world was still spinning tomorrow anyway.   
‘Would it be unprofessional to use this time...’ J said suddenly, indicating the slow progress of the lift up the skyscraper. Yasmin couldn’t argue with her, what else were they going to do, stand and worry until the top floor?  
Yasmin backed against the wall of the lift and J stepped up in-front of her. She kissed her shoulder, trailed up her neck, planted one on her jaw, then found her mouth again. Yasmin closed her eyes and lost herself in it. Soft and warm and teeth. She slipped her hands onto J’s hips and pulled them into her. J’s hands snaked round her and held her back tightly, pulling her closer still.  
‘God I wish you hadn’t gone that night’ Yasmin breathed. J froze, Yasmin noticed. ‘What?’  
‘I have to tell you something’ she said sheepishly. Yasmin couldn’t guess what. J wished the lift would ding and they would arrive so she could get round this, but her conscience demanded that she come clean.   
‘We have already had sex’ she said simply. Yasmin’s frown deepened. ‘The day after we first kissed, I came back, and we did it then’  
‘I think I’d remember...’ Yasmin said, her mind piecing it together while she spoke.   
‘Retcon, I knew you’d insist on coming with me, after him, and I didn’t know what was happening yet, I needed you out of the way and safe, I’m so sorry and I know it’s unforgivable’ J was crying. Yasmin couldn’t quite believe it.   
‘You erased my memory, to keep me safe?’ Yasmin repeated back to her, J nodded slowly. ‘Well it worked, so far’ Yasmin admitted, J smiled wanly  
‘Yeh, we made it intact, more or less” she glanced at Yasmin’s chest and her own leg.   
‘Was I...any good?’ Yasmin asked, a sense of unreality flowing over her. J blushed.   
‘Yes, you were’ she laughed, ‘I never thought you’d take it this well’  
‘I don’t really know how to take it, but, I know that you love me’   
‘I do, I always have’   
‘Good, well, let’s finish this and go start our lives together’ Yasmin pulled her into a final, long, achingly good kiss. 

The elevator dinged and the doors trundled open. The top floor was dominated by a control centre, all terminals and floating displays. Two stairwells flanked the room, that was where the fireteams would eventually reach. Whoever was left anyway, Yasmin thought grimly. Hunched over the central control panel was Koschei. Even with his back turned, he exuded danger and mania. He didn’t even turn when they stepped out into the heart of his operation.  
‘They're ready to fly Doctor’ he said, as the displays showed the nukes spread across the globe.  
‘I’m not the Doctor anymore’ J said, raising her gun and firing. The bullet hit a sheet of bulletproof glass that surrounded the plinth that he was on.   
‘So we aren’t playing nice, fine’ he said, eyeing the bullet scuff. He raised his hand and clicked his fingers. Lucy stepped out from nowhere, her pretty red dress contrasting with a mean machine gun. She squeezed the trigger and the wall behind the pair of them was chewed up. Yasmin and J dropped to the floor and scrambled for cover.   
‘I’m ending it all Doctor!’ Koschei called over the drone of gunfire.  
‘No reasoning with him, we have to get to that console’ J risked a glance from cover, spotted Lucy and then ducked back below as she fired again.   
‘You feint to the right, cover me, I’ll take her out’ Yasmin said, visualising the attack. J nodded and rolled out of cover. Lucy shrieked and trained her gun on J, firing wildly. Yasmin took off to the left, low and fast, closing the gap. Lucy didn’t notice her, not until she was right on top of her. Her fist collided with Lucy’s temple and she was knocked out. The machine gun clattered to the floor as she fell in a heap.   
‘Well done, you took out the missus’ Koschei said, stepping out from behind the glass, ‘my turn’ he said, raising his own gun, squarely at Yasmin’s chest.


	17. Valentine’s Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very small Valentine’s Day Special

‘How do you like your eggs?’ J called up the stairs.   
Yasmin blinked awake against the filtering sunlight coming through the curtains. She stretched, her feet sliding down and not sticking out of the bed. She frowned and looked around, not her room, not her single bed. J’s massive bed. She was naked too, she usually slept in some clothing at least. The previous night flashed before her eyes and she smiled to herself. She stretched out luxuriously on the huge mattress and squeaked with contentedness.   
‘Yaz, eggs, how?’ J shouted up again.  
‘Er, scrambled’ Yasmin replied, rubbing her eyes.   
‘Tough, I’m making you an omelette’ J replied, not unkindly. Yasmin giggled. The room was beautiful and the bedding was soft as silk. It even smelled fresh. Yasmin vaulted out of bed with sudden athletic movement. She stood there like a dismounting gymnast for a moment before fishing her discarded clothing off the floor where they were somewhat disrupting the Spartan beauty of the room. 

She dressed on the way down a slim staircase, that they had climbed as an entangled pair some hours earlier, and entered a large open plan space. J was cooking in a vast island kitchen in the middle of the room. It had long floor to ceiling widows that showed gorgeous rolling hills bedecked with trees and a far off lake that sparkled with golden sunlight.   
‘Have a seat’ J said, without turning from the stove, beckoning to one of the stools that lined the breakfast bar.  
Yasmin eyed them, each must have cost upwards of £500 and there were 6 of them. She knew J was rich, but seeing her place really rammed it home. Yasmin had came over in jeans and a Topshop shirt. J had greeted her at the door in a suit. Not like her work suits, a more casual suit. But still a suit. Yasmin had felt momentarily out of place, but J had pulled her inside by her shoulders and kissed her on the threshold, the rest of the house tour was conducted while frantically exploring each other until they fell onto that giant bed. J had pulled the shirt and pants back on and was cooking in an untucked, crisp white shirt and charcoal trousers. Yasmin knew from last night that they felt amazing under her fingers. Rich home, rich clothes, she wondered how long this infatuation could last. She was a coworker, a lowly agent under the boss, literally, but still, this was going to end, she told herself. Should still enjoy it though, she thought. J flicked her wrist and twisted round with the skillet. She poured the omelette out onto a plate in-front of Yasmin with a flourish.   
‘Bon appetit, lover’ she said with a wink before turning back to her own cooking. 

Yasmin took a gleaming fork and shredded the steaming omelette into little bits. J glanced round,   
‘That were perfect that’ she moaned.   
‘I asked for scrambled, the customer is always right’ Yasmin smiled sweetly and skewered a piece.   
‘You weren’t a fussy eater last night’ J murmured and Yasmin nearly choked.  
‘Now now mam’ she said evenly, uselessly glancing around to see it anyone heard, ‘here in the RECOR canteen, loose lips sink ships’ Yasmin said meeting her eyes. J joined in the little role play,   
‘Oh, silly me, referencing our illicit affair in public like this, how unprofessional’ J said, drawing out the last word as she leaned over the counter towards Yasmin. When their faces were level, she tilted her head a fraction and arched an eyebrow. Asking for a kiss. Yasmin reached out, placed her thumb on J’s bottom lip,   
‘Close your eyes’ she demurred. J obliged, and let Yasmin open her mouth. Yasmin placed a piece of her scrambled omelette into J’s open mouth, and gently closed her mouth by her chin.  
‘You are dead, Khan’ J said, muffled.   
‘Don’t talk with your mouthful’ Yasmin said, biting her lip to stop her smile spreading.   
J spat the egg out and shook her head.  
‘You, are, dead, Yasmin, Khan’ she said slowly, crawling onto the counter.   
Yasmin let her come, sitting pretty on her stool. J swept the plate aside and leaned in to kiss her. Their lips met, soft but firm, warm and wet. Yasmin just felt happy. The morning was this perfect little microcosm. She didn’t want to leave it. J dropped off the counter and sat in Yasmin’s lap, facing her, on the tiny stool which threatened to topple. Yasmin braced her foot against the breakfast bar and wrapped her arms round J, holding her close. Her full weight in her lap, her toned shoulders rippling under her palms, her kiss deepening every moment. Yasmin hung in that moment of blissful sensory overload.   
‘I love you’ she didn’t know if she said it, or thought it, or J said it, or thought it, but it was there.   
‘I’ll save you’  
‘Time to wake up now’ 

Yasmin came back to consciousness with a start. She was on the floor of the control room. J was fighting with Koschei a few feet away, landing precise jabs, driving her fists into his chest, growling with exertion. Yasmin felt like her chest had been hit with a cartoonishly large hammer. She saw multiple gunshots in the material of her coat. Her bulletproof vest underneath was in tatters but it had saved her. Her neck was slick with blood, one of the bullets must have grazed her. Lucy was still out of commission, slumped on the floor next to her. Koschei landed a kick squarely in J’s core, sending her skidding back with a yelp. Yasmin pushed through the pain and snatched up the gun Lucy had been using. She swung round ignoring the black flare of pain under her ribs and pulled the trigger, lighting the Master up.


	18. The End Of The World Bell

The displaced air from the bullets whipped past Koschei’s face as he twisted his way out of their path. One snagged his jacket’s arm and fibres frayed, but he was unharmed. J was on him in an instant pummelling her fist into his stomach. He absorbed the blow and swiped at her, she hopped back and cracked a kick aimed at his shin, but he shimmied aside. They danced like this, not landing blows for a few moments, giving Yasmin time to stand and reload. She cocked the gun loudly and they glanced round, stances ready, fists still raised.  
‘I won’t miss this time, it’s over’ Yasmin said, summoning all of her confidence. Koschei glanced at the controls and darted for them. Yasmin opened fire but her bullets thudded into the bulletproof glass around the booth. J darted after him, grabbing onto his shoulders while he attempted to operate the console. An new alarm started to trill from the ceiling. Koschei elbowed J from behind, who staggered back against the glass of the control booth. Yasmin crossed the floor, rounded the pedestal and swung round, poking her gun through the doorway in the glass. There was no reasoning with him, she thought, even now he was literally trying to end life on Earth. He would soon press the right keys and they’d be done for. Everyone, her parents, her sister, her team, her J. Yasmin glanced at her, slumped against the glass, wincing against the pain in her leg. Their eyes locked and Yasmin tried to convey a lot of feelings in an instant. J started to shake her head when Yasmin pulled the trigger. 

The Master was hit with an entire clip of ammunition. The force propelled him through the opposite door in the glass and he hit the wall heavily, sending terminal screens and keyboards flying. J gasped as she watched, her mouth hanging open. Yasmin watched every second of it. The man had stabbed her, the man had taken J from her, forced them apart, imprisoned, tortured, hurt her. The mad man was going to end the entire world. But he was still a person, and Yasmin had ended that.  
‘What have you done?’ J yelled, pulling Yasmin out of her reeling thoughts. She tore her eyes away from the slumped form of the Master.  
‘Saved the world’ she said vacantly.  
‘You might have doomed it’ J said, pushing herself back to standing.  
‘What do you mean?’ Yasmin asked, shaking her head to try and expel the strange mood that had befallen her.  
‘The alarm, he activated Archangel, and I don’t know how to stop it, he did’ she said while she ran round the controls, examining the screens.  
‘It’s activated, so, that’s it, end of the world?’ Yasmin asked, the implications dawning on her like a tonne of bricks. Her stomach dropped and her legs went from under her. ‘I killed the world?’  
‘Hey, hey stop it, I’ll fix it, you stopped him, he’s responsible not you’ J said, sweeping over to kneel in front of her, her hands holding Yasmin’s face gently. ‘Not you, not ever’ she said, planting a kiss on the corner of her mouth. Yasmin went to kiss back but caught the air as J was already back at the console, operating a keyboard. 

‘Oh fuck’ she breathed.  
‘You can’t stop it?’ Yasmin asked, her voice cracking.  
‘Oh Yasmin Khan, I wish we had more time’  
‘I’d rather have had this, than not had it, I love you J’  
‘I love you too Yasmin’ she said, pulling her to her feet and enveloping her in a hug. They snuggled for a moment while the end of the world bell tolled. Then J pushed Yasmin out of the bulletproof glass doorway. In a swift movement she operated a panel and the doorway sealed up as a sheet of glass shot up from the floor of the pedestal. Yasmin pressed her hands against the glass, confused.  
‘Whatever you’re thinking, don’t’ she said through the glass.  
‘I can stop it, I can save you, but I have to go alone’ J said, blinking back tears, she turned her back and operated the console.  
‘Go where, stop, I don’t want you to go, don’t leave me again’  
‘It’s me or the world babe’  
‘Then I chose you’  
J turned, and met Yasmin’s gaze, both of them were crying, both of them knew this was the end.  
‘I won’t let him kill you, I won’t let him win’ J glanced at the dead Master.  
‘What will I do every day without you?’  
‘You’ll be amazing, you’ll save the world, you’ll be my Yasmin, every day, because I’m making you keep on living, this isn’t the end’  
‘At least open the door and say a proper goodbye to me’ she pleaded.  
‘Nah, I don’t like endings’ she said as she turned and pulled down a yellow lever. 

The alarm intensified and railing started to raise up from the floor around the dias. Yasmin watched numbly as J worked on the machinery with her back turned. The bars locked in place and smoke started to billow from the roof around the central console. Lights and alarms pulsed as the roof began to move. J punched a button and a tannoy screeched above the cacophony of sound in the control room.  
‘Get to the stairwell and run, I don’t know what happens to this place once I launch, knowing him, nothing good’  
J’s voice called over the speaker system. Yasmin closed her eyes. She didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t hear her through the glass anyway. J had made her mind up, chosen for her again. Pushed her away, out of harm’s way, even though she hadn’t asked. Yasmin felt angry. She glanced around the room, hopelessly. Her gaze fell upon the body of Koschei. A mad idea occurred. 

Within the console room, J was frantically following the instructions on the screens. This was meant for six operators and she was having to input it all singlehandedly. All this technology, she thought, the fact that RECOR didn’t know slightly embarrassed her. She was managing it though, this bird was going to fly. An alert flashed up across every screen and J leaned in to scrutinise the tiny text.  
DOOR BREACH, SECURE BEFORE TAKEOFF. She frowned and glanced around. Yasmin was stood by her side, holding a small device.  
‘Master key’ she said simply, her face barely concealing her emotional state, her eyes completely not.  
‘Get out before-‘ J started but Yasmin pulled the yellow lever and stepped up, wrapping her arms around J. The glass doors slid shut again and after a peel of an alarm, they were sealed inside a thick metal tube.  
‘I’m done with you making all the decisions’ Yasmin said into J’s shoulder.  
‘I’m your boss’ J said, laughing, accepting the situation, ‘you idiot, you could have got out’  
‘I know, but I didn’t want to’  
‘What did I do to deserve you?’  
‘Must have been really good in your past lives’ Yasmin teased.  
The room shook and they felt their stomachs flip as it moved vertically, like a lift, like a really fast lift.  
‘Are we going to space?’  
‘We’re going to space’


	19. Space

‘Gotta say, this isn’t how I envisioned my first few weeks on the job’ Yasmin Khan said while she looked out of the window of a rocket that was tearing its way out of the planet’s gravitational pull.   
‘It’s been a bit mad hasn’t it’ J agreed, she hadn’t stopped smiling since Yasmin had defied her and returned to the control room. It was a bittersweet feeling, she felt, deep in her chest. She was glad that Yasmin was there with her, after everything. That devotion was everything she had hoped for. But she wished that she hadn’t. The poor girl deserved to live. J crossed the room with some effort, as the G forces were taking hold, and she took her hand, interlacing their fingers. Yasmin looked at her, her eyes were full of fear, anxiety, exhilaration, madness.   
‘You were worth it’ one of them whispered, they were embracing so closely that it was hard to tell which.   
The rocket sailed into the exosphere and the intense shaking lessened. The pair of them looked about them. Black void pressed against the windows on one side and near blinding Earthlight flooded the other.   
‘What’s the plan then boss?’ Yasmin asked, smiling weakly.   
‘This rocket is programmed to auto dock with the Archangel satellite system, we have to get aboard and shut it down manually’ J said, switching to mission mode. Yasmin kissed her softly, to bring her back, at least until they docked. She didn’t want to lose her again just yet.   
‘What was that for, getting you marooned in space, so romantic’ J asked.   
‘I chose this’ Yasmin urged. J relented, kissing her back. The rocket’s engine stopped firing and tiny movements were handled with thrusters that let out gouts of air, fractionally adjusting the shuttle’s course as they approached a vast, wide satellite hanging in space like a spider.

‘Weightlessness’ Yasmin stated in awe as her and J started to rise off the floor of the control room.   
‘Nother thing off the bucket list’ J quipped, but her face was barely hiding her amazement, they were out of their depth. They held onto each other as gravity let them go.   
‘Do you think we are crisis bonded?’ Yasmin asked, her face snuggled into J’s neck.   
‘I think you’re overthinking’ J whispered, kissing the top of her head.   
‘I mean it like, look at all this, I just jumped in a spaceship for you’   
‘I know, I feel like I’m going to wake up in that cell any moment’  
‘I feel like I’m going to wake up at home, Charing Cross seems so far away right now’  
‘We could probably see London from here’  
‘Not helping’  
‘Sorry, I love you’   
‘I love you too’   
The shuttle docked with a thud and a hiss of pneumatic equipment rang out.   
‘We’ve landed’ J said with finality.

They geared up with breathing masks that J found stashed under the main terminal and they floated over to the airlock above them.   
‘I don’t know if it’s manned, so be ready to fight’ J said. Yasmin wondered how that would work out, their first times in zero gravity would surely hamper their fighting skills, but she needn’t have worried. They floated into the satellite and saw nothing but a handful of drifting corpses.   
‘Figures, Master didn’t want anyone getting heroic, no cold feet, gassed them all’ J said through gritted teeth.  
‘Are we safe?’   
‘Probably not, come on’ J pushed off the floor with both feet and shot vertically upwards, like Supergirl, Yasmin thought wildly, this was beyond mad. 

They entered the main control room of the satellite and J landed heavily on the console. She tapped the main screen and diagnostics appeared.   
‘I downloaded the mainframe onto my contacts, should let me hack this thing’ she explained, she liked explaining things out-loud when she was semi nervous Yasmin noticed. She floated over and tapped her shoulder encouragingly.   
‘Once we shut this down, we can signal RECOR, get proper authorities involved’ she continued, Yasmin doubted that would happen, but let her talk it out anyway.   
The screen flashed red and J drained of colour, trailing off into silence.   
‘Trouble?’ Yasmin asked, her bad feeling had been confirmed.   
‘No, it’s fine’ J said, swiping the alert away and continuing to issue commands into the screen in a computer language that Yasmin hadn’t yet learnt.   
‘For a master spy you’re a bad liar babe’ Yasmin said softly.   
‘I need you to get to a fuse station, this next bit needs simultaneous operation’ she asked, working more frantically on the computer. ‘Down that corridor, hang a left, through a small aperture, the station should be a small yellow box according to this’ she tapped her temple, indicating the display on her retinas. Yasmin nodded, kissed her cheek and pushed off her, using the momentum to fly through the room. No matter how bad the situation was, or how scared she was, flying was amazing, she’d miss it, like she’d miss so much else. 

Yasmin followed J’s directions, trying not to look at the dead astronauts that littered the station. The aperture was a small porthole, Yasmin had to lie flat and pull herself inside. It felt uncomfortably like being in a giant test tube. Once she was inside she orientated herself outright, relative to the station’s architecture, and cast around looking for the yellow fuse box. The aperture slid closed with a pneumatic hiss.   
‘No’ Yasmin breathed. J’s voice came over the speaker system.   
‘Sorry love, it was trouble, big trouble, the system is locked, impossible to override, the Osterhagen network is going to blow, unless I do this’   
‘Let me help then’ Yasmin pleaded, letting the tears flow. They pooled in her eyes and floated off into the air.   
‘I’m the boss, it’s my responsibility’ J said, ‘also I love you, so it’s my job to get you out, get you safe, I have a duty of care’   
‘Fuck duty, I’m not leaving you here alone’ Yasmin snapped, yelling.   
‘It doesn’t make sense for us both to die’ J said over the speakers, ignoring Yasmin’s yelled complaints. ‘You’re going home, that’s an order’ she pressed the escape pod launch sequence and cut the communication. Yasmin heard the mechanisms whir into life and the channel go dead. She felt control being taken from her, again. She was utterly powerless this time. Nothing to do except wait, and watch. She watched the pod disconnect from the satellite, she watched herself fall away. She watched the satellite grow smaller and smaller. She even watched the satellite bloom in a silent explosion and disintegrate. She didn’t say a word as the pod fell back to earth, as the flames obscured the windows, until the forces of the planet rendered her unconscious and darkness took her. 

Yasmin woke briefly when the pod hit the ground, its parachute fell upon the pod like a blanket and diffused sunlight filtered through it, filling the cabin with warming light. Yasmin didn’t move, she lay there numb, replaying the kiss she left on J’s cheek, her warmth, her smile, the eerily silent explosion. Her face, then flames. The debris of the satellite drifting in the black void. She had saved her life. J had saved all life on Earth. But Yasmin didn’t feel saved. She didn’t feel alive. She didn’t know how long she lay there, or if she slept, but eventually the parachute shifted and the pod’s hatch was opened. People in bulky protective suits entered and loaded Yasmin onto a stretcher. She watched with a detached disinterest. Maybe she had a concussion, she half thought. Maybe she was dead, maybe this was the afterlife, staring out your dead eyes until they got closed for you.   
‘J?’ She heard herself say. One of the people carrying her leaned over, their visor obscuring their features nearly completely, this vague human asked her if she was okay, Yasmin laughed weakly. She doubted she’d ever be ok again honestly. The stretcher was loaded into a vehicle and the journey was long and uneventful, Yasmin slept.


	20. Case Closed

‘You feeling up to a debrief?’ The voice of Kate Stewart asked from behind Yasmin’s bed.   
‘Go for it’ Yasmin said monotone, not looking away from the patch of wall she had been staring at since she was wheeled in.   
‘Archangel has been secured and decommissioned, the hunt for the lost Osterhagen stations is underway, basically the plot was completely foiled, thanks to you’ the compliment hung in the air. Yasmin couldn’t even shrug, she just lay there propped up on her pillows. Her team, Mickey, Barkley, the twins, had visited her and they couldn’t rouse her beyond automatic hellos and goodbyes. Even Bonnie and her razor wit didn’t reach her. Kate continued the details of the debrief, not leaving any silence for Yasmin to not fill. When she reached the end of her dossier, she snapped it shut and stood,   
‘Get well soon agent, you’re welcome back on active duty whenever you feel ready’ she said with a perfunctory nod.   
Yasmin nodded, so slightly that Kate almost missed it.   
‘Very well’ she said, leaving.   
Yasmin let the silence continue, not making a peep until the nurse brought her some food much later, and then only uttering a thank you. All she thought of was J. 

‘She’s not getting better’ Bonnie told Petronella in the waiting room of the hospital.   
‘She has to, everyone loses someone’   
‘What if you’d lost me’ Bonnie asked. ‘Would you be peachy fine a couple days later?’  
‘We both know I will die first’ Petronella joked.  
‘Wow, you’re the funny one, things really have changed’ Bonnie said, looking over at the door to Yasmin’s room. The director of RECOR strode out and came towards them. Petronella straightened up, Bonnie remained hunched over in her chair.   
‘You two are welcome at RECOR, we have several positions open’ she said as she passed by them, but not stopping.   
‘She knows we could have joined any time if we wanted to...’ Petronella said.  
‘It was a threat sis, not an offer’ Bonnie said watching Kate walk away.  
‘Office life for us then?’ She asked faking brightness.   
‘Maybe’ Bonnie said. ‘Could be good for us’ 

That night Yasmin jerked awake again, calling J’s name, after another dream that transposed her from her hospital bed back into that free-falling capsule above the Earth, watching that station silently bloom in orange flame and engulf her love. She noticed a shadow casting across the floor, someone was in the doorway. Not a nurse, they held themselves differently. Yasmin twisted round, ready to fight, but it was Kate again. Her face was grim.   
‘So there is some fight left in you, good, we just heard reports that the Master’s body, recovered from that complex, was in fact someone else, a grunt in his little army, in his place’  
The words were lead weights in Yasmin’s stomach.   
‘He survived?’   
‘And escaped, it seems’  
Yasmin wanted to be sick, J was dead and Koschei wasn’t. The was all wrong. The wrongness of it burned in Yasmin’s core.   
‘I’ll leave it with you’ Kate said, throwing a tablet onto Yasmin’s bed. Her heels clacked away while Yasmin’s mind reeled. The tablet’s black screen glared at her from her legs. Holding her breath, she opened the screen and read.  
Codename: MASTER, not accounted for.   
Meanwhile J, M.I.A assumed dead. In a ball of fire. Maybe the vacuum of space. Knowing what that did to a human, Yasmin half hoped she never made it out of the wreckage. She pressed her temples hard and screwed her eyes shut, trying to stop thinking. 

Days dragged themselves by and Yasmin discharged herself eventually, driven mad by the tablet that contained the knowledge that he had gotten away with it. She left it there, under her duvet, after wiping its memory of course. A cleaner could have it, she hoped. Back in Charing Cross, Yasmin pulled her mattress out of her bedroom and slammed it down beneath the window. She laid down and stared up at the stars. Where J was.   
She flicked the TV on and didn’t listen to it for a few hours, until the news reported on the satellite crash.   
Yasmin watched the wreckage being picked over with a hollow feeling. She had been there. That fact was surreal. When the segment ended, without mention of human remains being found, or the fact that it was no accident, it had in fact been instrumental in saving the damn world for this report to go ahead, Yasmin muted the box and refocused on the sky. It looked closer now. 

Her apartment clicked around her and she thought about J, about that lost night. She told her she’d been here, but Yasmin could and never would remember it. Their first time. Their intimacy, flaring like a star, old light, still visible far away but long since faded from where it began. She tried to imagine her at the door, coming in, them embracing, kissing, chasing each other’s mouths as their entwined bodies walked with four legs, through her little apartment, headed for bed. She felt slightly jealous, of herself, and she had to laugh, weakly. J was here, they were here, they were together here. But she couldn’t remember it. J erased it, to save her. But Yasmin couldn’t be sure. Maybe she made it up, to give them more time, even just the thought of it?  
‘Were you here?’ Yasmin asked aloud, visualising J’s inscrutable face, soft, glowing, beautiful.  
‘Were you ever even here?’ She asked the stars.


End file.
